USA > Nebraska > Douglas County > Omaha > Omaha: the Gate city, and Douglas County, Nebraska, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 21
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In the spring of 1887 the Omaha Motor Railway Company was incorporated by Dr. S. D. Mercer, S. S. Curtis, E. L. Stone, H. J. Davis, C. E. Mayne, C. B. Brown and J. F. Hertzman, with a capital stock of $500,000, all of which was paid in before the work of construction was commenced. Owing to the opposition of the rival companies, through injunctions and other obstructions, much of the construction work of this company was done at night, especially on Saturday nights, beginning about midnight, in order to get down as much track as possible before the courts could be called upon to interfere. Work was com- menced at the intersection of Fourteenth and Davenport streets one night in July, 1887, and by morning nearly a mile of track was laid. It ran north on Fourteenth to Cass, west on Cass to Seventeenth, thence north to Webster, west on Webster to Twenty-second, north from there to Burt, and west on Burt to Twenty-sixth. The work was of the most temporary and flimsy character, but the track once down the company set about improving it so that it would be safe and permanent. In a short time the light "T" rails, that had been used in the great haste, were taken up and replaced by others of modern design and more substantial. Before the coming of winter about seven miles of track had been laid and cars were making regular trips over the entire system. In addition to this, about two and a half miles were laid in South Omaha and the company acquired a part of the Benson line. By the first of 1888 Doctor Mercer had pur- chased almost the entire stock of the company and in February, 1888, he sold about a one-fourth interest to John A. and Paul W. Horbach.
Still another street railway corporation came into existence in 1887. In the summer of that year the Omaha & Southwestern Street Railway Company was organized and incorporated by S. J. Howell, Cyrus Morton, Henry Ambler, J. T. Paulsen and C. F. Harrison. Three miles of road were built that fall, starting from the northwest corner of Hanscom Park and running to Windsor Place, Howell Place, Ambler Place, Eckerman Place and the West Side. The cars were drawn by horses.
In the fall of 1888 the Council Bluffs & Omaha electric motor line was com- pleted. This road, connecting the cities of Council Bluffs and Omaha, was built
LEWIS MORR
THE FIRST HORSE CAR RUN IN OMAHA IN 1868 This car was used on Farnam Street only
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chiefly by Council Bluffs capitalists and owned the bridge over which their cars passed between the two cities. The cost of the bridge and the five miles of track was about seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
CONSOLIDATION OF INTERESTS
From the foregoing it will be seen that at the close of the year 1888 there were six street railway companies doing business in Omaha and Council Bluffs. The Legislature which assembled on January 1, 1889, decided that better service could be obtained by a fewer number of companies and passed an act authoriz- ing the consolidation of street railway companies in cities where more than one corporation of that nature existed.
In the meantime Doctor Mercer, of the Omaha Motor Railway Company, had purchased back the stock he had sold to the Horbachs, after which he sold three- fourths of the entire stock to a syndicate composed of E. W. Nash, J. J. Brown and J. H. Millard, of Omaha, and N. W. Wells, of Schuyler, Neb. Probably his reason for doing this was on account of some trouble that commenced in Novem- ber, 1888, when his company was granted permission to erect poles, build a power house and run cars by electricity, using the overhead trolley system. Strong opposition quickly developed, the citizens living along the lines being generally opposed to the erection of the poles and stringing wires along the streets. The Omaha Horse Railway Company and the Cable Tramway Com- pany took a hand in the fight and the District Court-was appealed to for an injunction to prevent the Mercer Company from carrying out its purposes. Judges Groff, Doane and Wakeley, sitting as a court of equity, heard the case. A mass of testimony was introduced to show the relative merits of the overhead, underground and storage systems, as used in different cities, and a number of witnesses were examined. The court refused to grant the injunction and the company went ahead with its plans, erecting a power house at the corner of Nicholas and Twenty-second streets and completing all the necessary equipment for operating its cars by electricity.
The Omaha Horse Railway Company and the Cable Tramway Company were then consolidated on April 1, 1889, under the name of the Omaha Street Railway Company. This was the beginning of that process of amalgamation which finally united all the street car interests of the city into one system and greatly improved the service. Not long after this was effected, overtures were made to the officials of the Mercer Company to consolidate its interests with those of the newly organized Omaha Street Railway Company. Little progress was made until the following November, when the Mercer lines were acquired by purchase. On the first day of January, 1800, the Omaha Street Railway Company owned and operated 361/2 miles of horse railway, 91/2 miles of cable lines, and forty miles of electric railway, or a total of eighty-six miles. During the next five years the greater part of the horse car lines were equipped with electricity.
There seems to have been a sort of mania for organizing street railway com- panies in Omaha about this time. In the spring of 1891 the Metropolitan Street Railway Company-a small corporation with a big name-built what afterward became popularly known as the "Dundee Line." which extended from the inter-
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section of Forty-first and Farnam streets north and west to J. N. H. Patrick's place, a little over a mile in length.
On July 3, 1891, the Interstate Bridge & Street Railway Company began running electric cars on its line from the intersection of Locust Street and Sher- man Avenue to East Omaha. Its line was about 21/4 miles long and arrange- ments were made with the Omaha Street Railway Company for the transfer of passengers to and from the Sherman Avenue line of the latter company.
Some few changes in ownership and management were made during the next ten years. In the fall of 1901 the Omaha & Council Bluffs Street Railway Com- pany took the preliminary steps for the consolidation of all the street railway lines into one system. The deal was consummated the following spring, whereby all the lines in the city became the property of the Omaha & Council Bluffs Company, and the line from Omaha to Council Bluffs, with the bridge, is operated by the same company under a lease. The company thus operates 162 miles of track, has about 175 cars in daily service on ordinary days, employs 1,500 people in the car service, the power house at the corner of Fifth and Jones streets and the shops at the corner of Twenty-sixth and Lake. The officers of the company on April 1, 1916, were: Gurdon W. Wattles, president; Frank Hamilton, vice presi- dent; W. A. Smith, second vice president and general manager; R. A. Luessler, assistant general manager; W. G. Nicholson, secretary and auditor; and A. S. Widenor, treasurer.
OMAHA GAS COMPANY
On January 15, 1868, two petitions came before the city council, each asking for a franchise to supply the people of Omaha with illuminating gas. One of these petitions was presented by George B. Graff and others, representing the Omaha Gas Company, and the other was presented by Dr. Enos Lowe, who, with his associaties, desired to establish The Omaha Gas Manufacturing Company. Both petitions were referred to a special committee, which afterward returned a favorable report, with the result that an ordinance was passed authorizing both companies to engage in the manufacture of gas. The Graff company never did anything toward establishing gas works, but Doctor Lowe's company perfected its organization and soon commenced active operations. On February 19, 1868, two lots were leased by the city to the company for a term of thirty years, at a rental of $5 per year, and the city was given the privilege of buying the works at an appraised value at the expiration of fifteen years.
Progress was somewhat slow at first, the company reporting in November, 1869, only 198 consumers of gas. A year later there were about one hundred street lamps in the city. Then the business began to grow more rapidly. The two lots leased from the city became too small for the company's purposes and the block bounded by Eleventh, Twelfth, Jones and Leavenworth streets was occupied, the company's buildings covering three-fourths of the block. In the early 'gos the company purchased three acres at the intersection of Twentieth and Center streets and removed the manufacturing plant to that site. At that time the company was working with a capital stock of $500,000, had eighty-five miles of mains, and a storage capacity in its three retorts of 900,000 cubic feet. At the beginning of the year 1916 that capacity had been doubled, the capital
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stock of the company increased to $3,750,000, and large sums of money had been spent in extending the mains and improving the quality of the service to con- sumers.
Although many former consumers of gas have installed electricity for light- ing purposes, there are still a large number of Omaha people who depend upon gas to illuminate their homes, and a still larger number who use gas for cooking. The company also furnishes gas for 1,250 street lights. The officers of the com- pany on April 1, 1916, were as follows: F. T. Hamilton, president ; George W. Clabaugh, vice president and secretary ; I. W. Morris, treasurer; L. W. Wey- muller, assistant treasurer; W. H. Taylor, manager. The company employs about three hundred people.
OMAHA ELECTRIC LIGHT & POWER COMPANY
The first company to introduce electric light into the State of Nebraska was the Northwestern Electric Light Company, which was organized in 1883, with Henry T. Clarke, president ; Nathan Merriam, secretary ; John T. Clarke, treasurer and manager. The first power house was in what was known as the Strang Build- ing, at the corner of Tenth and Farnam streets, but after a few months the plant was removed to the Woodman Linseed Oil Mills. On November 16, 1886, the Omaha Illuminating Company was incorporated by Pierce C. Himebaugh, C. C. Warren, H. T. Clarke, Frank Warren and Ralph Breckenridge, with a capital stock of $20,000 and leased for ten years all the rights and interests of the Northwestern Electric Light Company.
Meantime the Sperry Electric Light Company had been organized in 1883. soon after the Northwestern, with a capital stock of $56,000, of which $15,000 was represented by the patents of the Sperry Company and the exclusive privilege of using the same in Nebraska. It was the plan of this company to furnish electricity by the storage system. A brick building was erected on Dodge Street, between Eleventh and Twelfth, but the storage method was soon discovered to be unreliable. The project was then abandoned and a consolidation was effected with the Omaha Thomson-Houston Electric Light Company, which was just then starting in business in the city. Among the stockholders of the Sperry Company were: George C. and George W. Ames, Dr. V. H. Coffman, A. J. Simpson, John A. McShane, J. H. Dumont, George Armstrong, Guy Barton and W. A. L. Gibbon.
The Thomson-Houston Electric Light Company numbered among its stock- holders J. C. Reagan, J. W. Paddock, George Canfield, J. E. Riley, M. A. McMenamy, Alfred Shroeder, George W. Duncan and C. G. Reagan. It was organized on September 26, 1885, and was soon afterward reorganized as the New Omaha Thomson-Houston Electric Light Company, with S. L. Wiley as president and general manager, and H. E. Chubbuck, secretary, treasurer and superintendent. The new company had a capital stock of $600,000. It built a substantial brick power house, three stories high, 118 by 135 feet, at the foot of Jones Street and within a year had about seventy miles of line in operation. For a time it furnished current to the Northwestern Company, then to its suc- cessor, the Omaha Illuminating Company, and finally absorbed the interests of both these concerns.
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In 1903 the Omaha Electric Light and Power Company was organized and took over the entire business, plant and good will of the Thomson-Houston Com- pany. F. A. Nash, who had been president of the latter company for some time, was made president of the new company. The capital stock of the Omaha Electric Light and Power Company is now $4,000,000, of which $3,500,000 represents common stock and $500,000 preferred. The company furnishes the City of Omaha with 2,600 street lights-1,400 arcs and 1,200 incandescents. It also has a large number of private consumers and furnishes power to a number of manufacturing plants. Since the new company took possession, great improvements have been made at the power house and the lines have been extended into new districts. The officers of the company on April 1, 1916, were : George H. Harries, president ; W. D. McHugh, vice president and general counsel ; Ward M. Burgess, vice president ; S. E. Schweitzer, secretary and treasurer ; H. A. Holdrege, general manager.
NEBRASKA TELEPHONE COMPANY
Within the last thirty-five years the telephone has become an important factor in business circles, so that a telephone company can be classed with the public utilities. The first move toward the introduction of the telephone in Omaha was made in May, 1879, when the Omaha Electric Company was organized with C. W. Mead, president ; J. J. Dickey. vice president and general manager ; L. H. Korty, secretary and treasurer. The first exchange was established soon after the organi- zation of the company, and on July 10, 1879, the first telephone directory made its appearance, showing the names of 121 subscribers. Truly, a small beginning, but there was plenty of opportunity to grow.
In July, 1882, the Nebraska Telephone Company was incorporated and took over the business already established. S. H. H. Clark was elected president of the new company ; J. J. Dickey, vice president ; L. H. Korty, secretary and treasurer ; Flemon Drake, general manager. The company secured from the American Bell Telephone Company a perpetual and exclusive franchise for the State of Nebraska and Pottawattamie County, Iowa, the county in which Council Bluffs is located. At the time of organization the capital stock was fixed at $250,000, which a few years later was increased to $700,000. Subsequent increases have since been made from time to time until at the beginning of the year 1916 the capital stock was $7,500,000.
From the time the first exchange was opened in the Union Block, at the corner of Fifteenth and Farnam streets in 1879, it took ten years for the company to secure its first ten thousand subcribers. Before the expiration of that ten years, the exchange was removed to the fifth floor of the Ramge Building, at Fifteenth and Harney, where eighteen rooms were occupied by the exchange and the com- pany's offices. Between the years 1898 and 1908 over twenty thousand telephones were installed and the long distance system was extended to practically all parts of the state. Early in the present century the company moved into the row of buildings on Douglas Street, from Eighteenth to Nineteenth, where a modern telephone exchange is in operation, connecting about forty thousand subscribers with each other.
The officers of the company on April 1, 1916, were as follows: Casper E. Yost, president ; W. B. T. Belt, vice president and general manager; S. E. Mors- man, second vice president ; C. W. Lyman, third vice president ; J. W. Christie, secretary and treasurer.
CHAPTER XIII
PARKS AND BOULEVARDS
ORIGINAL PARKS AS LAID OUT BY THE FOUNDERS OF OMAHA-HANSCOM AND MEGEATH'S DONATION-THE PARK COMMISSION-FIRST BOARD OF PARK COM- MISSIONERS-BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF EACH OF THE TWENTY PUBLIC PARKS- BOULEVARDS CONNECTING THEM-THE FINANCIAL SIDE-FUTURE PROSPECTS- PRIVATE PLEASURE GROUNDS.
At the time Omaha was surveyed in 1854, few cities in the country had given much attention to the establishment of public parks and pleasure grounds. Never- theless, the founders of Omaha made some provisions for parks-provisions that their successors failed to observe and carry out. The seven blocks bounded by Eighth. Ninth, Jackson and Davenport were reserved for park purposes, but this tract of ground was divided into lots soon after the town was incorporated in 1857, the lots sold and a portion of the procceds used to aid in the erection of the Hern- don House, as told in another chapter. In addition to this reservation, Washington Square, bounded by Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Farnam and Douglas streets, and Jeffer- son Square, bounded by Cass, Chicago, Fifteenth and Sixteenth streets, were also set apart for public parks. The former was afterward sold to the county for a courthouse site, so that Jefferson Square is the only one of the original parks left. Several attempts were made to divert this square to other uses, but they all failed.
In the fall of 1872 A. J. Hanscom and James G. Megeath gave to the city a tract of fifty-seven and a half acres in the southern part of the city for park pur- poses, on condition that $3,000 be expended in 1873 for improving it ; $4.000 for each of the next three years; $5,000 in i877 and the same amount in 1878. The gift was accepted by the city council and the tract named "Hanscom Park." lt is bounded by Woolworth Avenue on the north; Park Avenue on the east ; Ed Creighton Avenue on the south, and Thirty-second Street on the west. For more than fifteen years after this donation, Hanscom Park and Jefferson Square were the only public parks or places of rest and recreation owned by the City of Omaha. Then came a change in the law that allowed greater freedom of action on the part of the municipality.
THE PARK COMMISSION
The Legislature of 1889 enacted a law providing for a general system of public parks in all cities of the metropolitan class in the State of Nebraska. Omaha was the only city affected by this law, and as the system of parks and
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boulevards has been built up under its provisions the full text of the act is given below.
"Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Nebraska, That in each city of the metropolitan class there shall be park commissioners, who shall have charge of all the parks and public grounds belonging to the city, with power to establish rules for the management, care and use of public parks and parkways; and it shall be the duty of said board of park commissioners from time to time to devise and suggest to the mayor and council a system of public parks, parkways and boulevards within the city, and within three miles of the limits thereof, and to designate the lands and grounds necessary to be used, purchased or appropriated for such purpose; and thereupon it shall be the duty of the mayor and council to take such action as may be necessary for the appropriation of the lands and grounds so designated, and for the purpose of making payments for such lands and grounds, assess such lands and grounds as may be specifically bene- fitted by reason of the appropriation thereof for such purpose, and issue bonds as may be required in excess of such assessment. Said board of park commis- sioners shall be composed of five members, who shall be resident frecholders of such city, and who shall be appointed by the judges of the judicial district in which such city shall be situated.
"Section 2. The members of said board shall be appointed by said judges, a majority of said judges concurring, on the second Tuesday of May, 1889, or on the second Tuesday of May following the creation of this act of any city of the metropolitan class, one for the term of one year, one for the term of two years, one for the term of three years, one for the term of four years and one for the term of five years; and after the appointment of said five members it shall be the duty of said judges, a majority concurring, to appoint or reappoint one member of said board each year on the second Tuesday of May.
"Section 3. A majority of all the members of the board of park commissioners shall constitute a quorum. It shall be the duty of said board of park commissioners to lay out, improve and beautify all grounds owned or hereafter acquired for public parks and employ a secretary and also such landscape gardeners, superin- tendents, keepers, assistants or laborers as may be necessary for the proper care and maintenance of such parks, or the improvement or beautifying thereof, to the extent that funds may be provided for such purposes. The members of the board at its first meeting each year after the second Tuesday in May shall elect one of their members as chairman of such board. Before entering upon their duties, each member of said board shall take an oath to be filed with the city clerk that he will faithfully perform the duties of his appointment, and in the selection or desig- nation of land for parks and boulevards and in making appointments he will act for the best interests of such city and the public, and will not in any manner be actuated or influenced by personal or political motives.
"Section 4. The chairman of such board shall receive a salary of six hundred dollars per annum and the other members of said park commission shall receive a salary of two hundred dollars per annum.
"Section 5. For the purpose of paying such salaries, providing funds for lay- ing out, improving or benefiting parks and public grounds and providing for the salaries and wages of employees of said board, the mayor and the council shall each year, at the time of making the levy of taxes for general city purposes, make
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a levy of not less than one and a half mills and not exceeding three mills on the dollar valuation on all the real and personal property within the corporate limits of such city taxable according to the laws of this state; and such fund shall be known as the park fund, the warrants thereon to be drawn only in the payments of accounts or claims audited by the said board of park commissioners."
Under the provisions of this act Judges Wakeley, Groff, Hopewell, Doane and Clarkson met on May 14, 1889, that day being the second Tuesday of the month, and appointed Alfred Millard, George B. Lake, Augustus Pratt, George W. Lin- inger and Dr. George L. Miller as the first board of park commissioners. The terms of these commissioners were from one to five years in the order named. On the day following their appointment the commissioners met and elected Dr. George L. Miller president, and Guy R. Doane was chosen secretary. Letters were written to landscape gardeners in St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Minneapolis and St. Paul, asking suggestions for the establishment of the Omaha park system. The result of this correspondence was that H. W. S. Cleveland, of Minneapolis, was employed to prepare plans for the use of the commission, in the improvement of the parks and public grounds of Omaha. In June, 1889, the commissioners visited Chicago and Minneapolis to examine the public parks and gain information regarding the methods pursued in those cities. Upon their return, William R. Adams was engaged as park superintendent and the work of improving the two parks owned by the city was commenced, as well as a movement for the acquisition of new park lands. From the beginning thus inaugurated Omaha now has twenty public parks, to wit: Bemis, Bluff View, Clearview, Curtiss Turner, Deer, Elmi- wood, Fontenelle, Hanscom, Highland, Himebaugh, Jefferson Square, Kountze, Levi Carter, Mckinley, Mandan, Mercer, Miller, Morton, Riverview and Spring Lake. The combined area of those parks is 980.33 acres, Levi Carter being the largest and Bluff View the smallest.
Bemis Park was the first to be acquired by the park commission after its organization. In the fall of 1889 the owners of a strip of land about two hundred feet wide and extending from Thirty-third to Thirty-sixth streets, a short distance north of Cuming, offered to donate the ground to the city for park purposes. As this strip consisted of a deep and narrow ravine, the park commission recommended the purchase of the land lying between that donated and Cuming Street. The first parcel of land was purchased in 1892, and the last in 1908, giving Bemis Park an area of ten and a half acres. The total cost of the lands so purchased was $45,522. Neighboring property owners also acquired some of the adjoining lots, in order to prevent erection of unsightly buildings thereon that would obstruct the view into the park. Little permanent improvements have been made in this park, but the natural features are such that in time it will doubtless become one of Omaha's beauty spots. It is connected with Hanscom Park by the Lincoln and Turner boulevards.
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