After
checking out some of the historic and more recent railroad related buildings,
our son continued driving us around Omaha to check out a few more places listed
on the National Register of Historic Places…
Our
first stop was fairly logical since David II is an attorney and he’s spent a
bit time here. The massive and impressive French Renaissance
Revival style Douglas County Courthouse was built in 1912.
A
couple of notable (actually notorious) events have taken place at this site.
· A lynching occurred outside the 2nd
Courthouse in 1891. Angered and believing
that a young girl had died after being attacked by a suspect, (the girl had not
died, and the allegation was never proven), hundreds of men overwhelmed the
small police force. They dragged the suspect from his cell and hung him from
streetcar cables at the corner of 17th and Harney.
· In September 1919, following Red Summer and
race riots in numerous industrial cities, a mob of thousands of white men from
South Omaha surrounded and attacked the Courthouse seeking to lynch an
African-American worker named Willy Brown.
He was accused of assaulting a white woman. The mob broke windows and climbed the outside
of the building. After a few hours, the
crowd set the courthouse on fire and they forced the police to hand over the
suspect. After lynching Brown, burning
his body, and attacking Omaha’s mayor, (who was rescued), the mob swarmed
toward the city's black neighborhood. They
were stopped from further violence by federal troops from Fort Omaha who had
been called in to restore order in the city.
· To learn more about “Red Summer”, a period
of racial unrest across the USA in which hundreds of people were killed, you
can go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Summer_(1919). Warning…a gruesome photo of Willy Brown’s
body and the mob is found at this site.
This
theater, which combined both Moorish and Classical styles, was built in
1926. It was originally opened as the
Riviera Theater. Now it’s now known as
the Rose Blumkin Performing Arts Center…or just The Rose.
Noted
for lavish stage shows combined with movies, the Riviera was regarded as one of
the most elegant entertainment facilities in the Midwest. The interior was designed in the ‘atmospheric’
style which was popular in the 1920s. It
simulated romantic outdoor Mediterranean courtyards with a night sky above,
including twinkling stars and drifting clouds.
For
some time, the theater was owned by Creighton University. Leased out, it passed through several
iterations, ending as the Astro Theater.
The theater closed in 1980. Closed
and facing possible demolition, Creighton University sold the Astro Theater to
Rose Blumkin in 1981. She was the founder
of the famous Nebraska Furniture Mart. In
the early 1990s the old theater was renovated and transformed into the Rose
Blumkin Performing Arts Center. It’s now
the home of the Omaha Theater Company.
This is
the Gottlieb Storz House. It was built
in 1905 by Omaha beer magnate Gottlieb Storz.
This Jacobethan Revival style mansion is included as part of the Gold
Coast Historic District in Omaha.
Gottlieb
Storz founded the Storz Brewing Company in Omaha in 1876. After two decades of success he constructed
this 27-room mansion. The mansion is
home to the Adele and Fred Astaire Ballroom on the top floor, which is the only
memorial to the Astaire’s Omaha roots.
The
mansion's heyday was the mid-20th century when Arthur Storz, Jr., owned it. The mansion was the scene of an opulent party
celebrating the movie ‘Strategic Air Command’ in 1955. The movie premiere was held in Omaha and the
premiere party was held at the Storz mansion with guests including James
Stewart and June Allyson, as well as the Strategic Air Command Commander Curtis
LeMay.
Factoids:
· Descendant Todd Storz was raised in this
house. He loved radio and he eventually
pioneered the Top 40 radio format that grew to popularity around the world.
· The Storz Brewing Company was owned by the
Storz family until 1966 and it ceased operations in 1972. In 2013, it was announced the brand would be
revived by Tom Markel, a Storz family descendant. That brewery is up and running and its
product can be found in many locations in and around Omaha. See http://storzbrewing.com/.
This is
the Hupmobile Building. Built in 1917 along
the city's historic Auto Row, the building was an early Hupmobile dealership. The structure was built as a dealership,
service shop, and factory branch for Hupmobile.
In 1925
the Hupmobile dealership was moved to a larger building. This building was used by several other
automobile dealerships until 1940.
Brands included Hudson, Willys-Knight, and Terraplane. A flight school was housed here from 1941-1943. The Sterling Manufacturing Company, which produced
coffins, ship parts, and water heaters during World War II, operated here until
2003. Unfortunately the building is
empty now.
Robert
Craig Hupp, a former employee of Oldsmobile and Ford, founded the company with
his brother Louis Gorham Hupp in 1908. Production began in 1909. Hupp Motor Car
Company continued to grow even after its founder left. Hupp competed strongly against Ford and
Chevrolet. By 1928 sales had reached over 65,000 units. The Hupp Motor Car Company began to decline
even before the Great Depression. It
finally closed in 1940. To learn more
about this early automobile company, you can go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hupmobile.
The
Prague Hotel is located in the heart of the Little Bohemia neighborhood of
Omaha, Nebraska. It was built by the
aforementioned Gottlieb Storz to provide Nebraska's Czech immigrants with
familiar settings in their new country. In addition to a 25-room hotel, the building included
a restaurant and a tavern. A sign in the
tavern window proclaimed in Czech, "Pražská Pivnice, Dámy Jsou
Vítány", which translated to English meant "Prague Hotel, Ladies Are
Invited". For more than 40 years it
remained the only hotel catering to Bohemians between Chicago and the Pacific
Coast.
The
building was originally constructed with a restaurant and tavern on the first
floor, hotel rooms on the second floor and a dance hall on the third floor, the
Prague Hotel was built as a center for the Czech community's social and
cultural activities. A native of Bohemia
ran the operation from its opening for the Storz Company and in 1915 he purchased
the Hotel from the brewery. The tavern
closed in 1942. In 1987 the building was
rehabilitated and converted into apartments.
Our next objectives were in Omaha’s Freedom Park. Freedom Park is an outdoor park and museum at
the Greater Omaha Marina on the bank of the Missouri River. We were frustrated in our efforts to find and
view the exhibits we were seeking…the photos are from Wikipedia. I’ll explain shortly.
This is the USS Hazard.
USS Hazard was an Admirable-class minesweeper that served in the United
States Navy during World War II. It was
built in 1944 and it was fitted for both wire and acoustic sweeping and could
double as an anti-submarine warfare platform. The Admirable class of minesweepers were also
used for patrol and escort duties. This
is the last remaining ship of this class left in the USA. The Hazard earned 3 battle stars for her
service during World War II.
Our
other objective in Freedom Park was the USS Marlin. The Marlin was a T-1-class training submarine
in commission from 1953 to 1973. She was
the second submarine of the United States Navy to be named for the marlin, a
large game fish. The USS Marlin was one
of the smallest operational submarines ever built for the U.S. Navy. For about 15 years she performed valuable
service as a target and training ship and helped to evaluate submarine and
antisubmarine warfare equipment and tactics.
OK…so
why did we visit Freedom Park and fail to locate these exhibits? It turns out that the park was badly flooded
and damaged in 2011. It was closed,
finally reopening in the fall of 2015 after 4 years of restoration and clean-up
work. Since we were there in June of
2016, why didn’t we find these vessels?
I guess that we weren’t persistent enough! To quote a visitor in the same month, “We had
a great visit. The dirt road and poor
entrance (to visit the former naval vessels) made it hard to find the place.” We’ll try again another time…
This
skyscraper is not listed on the National Register of Historic Places but it is
an Omaha landmark. The Woodmen Tower is
a 478 foot high-rise building in downtown Omaha. It’s the headquarters of the Woodmen of the
World insurance company. The 30-story building
was completed in 1969 and it was the tallest building in Omaha for over 30
years.
So what
the heck is Woodmen of the World? Woodmen
was founded in 1890 is the largest fraternal benefit society with open
membership in the United States. In
addition to providing life insurance protection to members, it’s founder believed
that Woodmen members, through their local lodges, should be an active volunteer
force within their communities, helping those in need.
Today,
the organization provides disaster relief efforts through the Woodmen/American
Red Cross partnership. More than 1,600 Woodmen volunteers belong to 160
disaster action teams nationwide, providing relief efforts in their local
communities. The organization has evolved
into a modern financial services organization, offering life and health
insurance, annuities, investments and home mortgages. Woodmen is one of the largest fraternal
benefit societies in the USA with more than 810,000 members who belong to more
than 2,000 lodges across the United States.
I learn something new almost
every day!
Just
click on any of the photos to enlarge them…
Thanks
for stopping by to learn a bit about Omaha’s history!
Take
Care, Big Daddy Dave
