Local History by
Omaha Exploration

With a recent proposal to rehabilitate the Center Mall into a mixed-use building with 500 apartments and office space, let's take a look back at the history of Omaha's first enclosed shopping mall, which also happened to be one of the first in the country. The mall...

Few American cities share as deep a connection to a sister city as Omaha does to Carlentini, Sicily. This weekend’s Santa Lucia Festival, now in its second century, is a reflection of that bond. Over the course of a decade starting in 1900, the Italian…

The skyrocketing popularity of passenger train travel resulted in Union Pacific replacing Omaha’s old Union Station with an extravagant new building in 1931. It was built on the site of the old station at 801 S. 10th Street in the area that would…

Sitting at the edge of downtown is a building called the "cupcake" when it was first built. There was nothing like it in Omaha. The building sits at the northeast corner of 19th & Dodge Street and was designed by Frank (Nes) Latenser of John Latenser & Sons,...

There’s nothing like the Rose Theater in Omaha. It catches your eye every time you make the drive along Farnam Street downtown. The ornate structure at 2001 Farnam Street was built by A. H. Blank, a Romanian immigrant who settled in Council…

At one time, Omaha was home to the most elegant hotel between Chicago and San Francisco. Located in the West Farnam District, the Blackstone Hotel lent its name to the increasingly affluent neighborhood along the streetcar route. The area…

When Omaha commissioned prominent landscape architect Horace W.S. Cleveland in 1889, the city was still in the early stages of building out its intertwined park and boulevard system. Among the earliest parks were Jefferson Square, which is now a parking…

While Omaha celebrates the opening of its reimagined Central Public Library uniquely positioned outside of the urban core, let’s take a look back at its first permanent location. While the Omaha Public Library wasn’t established until 23 years after the city’s...

Just two buildings were saved when the city embarked on its plan to build Central Park Mall. The first is the former Nash Block at 9th & Farnam Street, a holdover from Jobbers Canyon. The second is the former Burlington Headquarters Building just one block west....

By the early 1970s, downtown Omaha was suffering as businesses abandoned the urban core for the suburbs, or left the city altogether. That led Mayor Gene Leahy to launch an ambitious plan to "return to the river." The goal was to turn a gritty and neglected area...

Of the dozens of buildings that once made up the Jobbers Canyon Historic District, only one still stands. The McKesson-Robbins Warehouse, tucked within Gene Leahy Mall, was spared while the rest were bulldozed. Located at 900 Farnam Street, the warehouse was built for...