Boys Town (organization)

Originally known as "The City of Little Men", the organization was begun by Edward J. Flanagan, a Roman Catholic priest, while he worked in the Diocese of Omaha.

[2] From these beginnings, the City of Little Men developed new juvenile care methods in 20th-century America, emphasizing "social preparation as a model for public boys' homes worldwide".

Mounting societal tensions and the need for even more space led to Flanagan’s 1921 decision to relocate Boys Town to Overlook Farm.

[7] By the late 1930s, Boys Town's development and staff efforts to court public support had made it the subject of many newspaper and magazine articles.

A few months later, actors Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney, along with a 61-member crew, arrived at Boys Town to begin ten days of on-location filming.

[9] When Flanagan suffered a fatal heart attack in Berlin, Germany in 1948,[10] the archbishop of Omaha, Gerald T. Bergan, named Monsignor Nicholas H. Wegner as Boys Town's second executive director.

[12][13] The charity was found to have an endowment of over $191 million in 1971, enough to place it at #230 on the Fortune 500, yet continued to fundraise even with a shrinking population and no new expansion projects.

[16] In late 1974, Boys Town hired its first "Family-Teachers", a married couple who would begin caring for a small group of youth in a former cottage being converted into a "Family Home".

He had served from 1946 to 1950 as chaplain, teacher, and athletic coach for a girls' home run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd Convent in Omaha.