History of North Omaha, Nebraska
After a smallpox epidemic killed much of its population, and encroaching American settlement further reduced their historic way of life, the Omaha sold their lands and moved to their present reservation to the north in Thurston County, Nebraska in 1856.
The first settlements in North Omaha were the 1812 Fort Lisa located near Hummel Park and the 1823 Cabanné's Trading Post along the Missouri River.
Founded in August 1846, Cutler's Park was an early tent settlement for pioneers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who were on their way from Nauvoo to Salt Lake City, Utah.
[1] Although the Mormons had permission from the US government to occupy land temporarily, Native American tribes argued about whether they should pay a fee or taxes.
The early town included banks, a post office, a large mill, several bars, and other important businesses.
In the mid-1850s a large group of Irish immigrants built dugouts and sod houses in this area, which other settlers derisively labeled "Gophertown."
[2] The Irish became well-established in Omaha, building economic and political power before the waves of European immigrants and black migrants arrived at the end of the 19th century.
The Near North Side, closest to downtown, developed quickly in this period with many homes for working-class European immigrant and African American families.
Early businesses and housing were propelled by the introduction of a horse-driven street railroad in the 1870s, and electrical streetcar lines operated in North Omaha until 1955.
On May 17, 1883, Buffalo Bill founded his famous Wild West, Rocky Mountain and Prairie Exhibition in that area, making its first appearance at the aforementioned Omaha Driving Park.
[16] The most significant weather-related event to hit Omaha was the Easter Sunday tornado of 1913 that destroyed many of the area's businesses and neighborhoods.
[17] In the 1913 Easter Sunday Tornado, the Idlewild Pool Hall at 2307 North 24th Street was the scene of the greatest loss of life.
The victims were crushed by falling debris or overcome by smoke from fires begun when wood stoves used for heating overturned.
[19] Starting with the development of the Minne Lusa neighborhood, in the 1910s the area near Florence became home to an almost exclusively Danish immigrant community.
With a variety of churches and social clubs, the neighborhood was the cultural center for many of North Omaha's working class and middle-class whites.
The entire facility occupied more than 15 buildings with red-tiled floors and walls, burnished stainless steel and copper fixtures.
In the 1950s, the United Packinghouse Workers used their economic and political strength to demand that Omaha's bars, restaurants, and other establishments halt segregationist restrictions.
Although new meat packers have opened some new operations in Omaha, unionization has dropped sharply in the two decades after 1980, and African Americans have gained few of the new jobs.
[30] West Central-Cathedral Landmark Heritage District developed around the Academy of the Sacred Heart, opened in 1882, and St. Cecilia Cathedral.
This primarily residential district, the heart of which lies along both sides of North 38th Street, is the northern portion of what is known as the Gold Coast.
Because of job losses and population changes in the city, by the late 1960s the projects in North Omaha were inhabited almost entirely by poor and low-income African Americans.
Properties for rent and sale were restricted on the basis of race, with the primary intent of keeping North Omaha "black" and the rest of the city "white."
[35] However, in the first few decades of the new century, increasing numbers of immigrants and migrants, and competition for jobs and housing, prompted eruptions of racial violence.
Many African Americans had first been recruited by the meatpacking industry as strikebreakers, which raised resentment against them by working class ethnic immigrants and their descendants.
[37] Riots, including arson and significant property damage, skirmishes with local police, and a bombing in the mid- to late-20th century were demonstrations of other racial tensions.
Little if any effort is put into solving violent crime perpetrated in the community which creates a pocket of impunity that continues to snowball the problems.
In 1878 Fort Omaha became the Headquarters for the Department of the Platte, covering territory that stretched from the Missouri River into Montana and from Canada to Texas.
After the United States entered the war on April 6, 1917, operations increased to the extent that a sub-post was needed to accommodate men and the maneuvering balloons.
They include Malcolm X; Whitney Young, an important civil rights leader; the storied Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers, and author Tillie Olsen.
Singer Wynonie Harris, saxophonist Preston Love and Buddy Miles all have called North Omaha home.
