Historic Omaha

culture and politics of the area. They hailed
from Germany, Scandinavia, Central Europe,
the British Isles, and the eastern United States.
Among the early immigrants to Omaha were
many Irish. Some were post-Famine settlers,
seeking a new, less uncertain, life. Others
adopted military careers, or helped construct
roads or buildings, or, later on, served as laborers
on the transcontinental railroad. On pioneer
storefronts we read the names of Kennedy,
Megeath, Buckley, Sheehy, Egan, Hogan, and
many other Gaelic surnames. But the most
prominent and influential of the immigrant Irish
families were the Creightons, whose roots were
in Ireland’s County Monaghan.
Bridget and James Creighton trekked from
Ireland to Philadelphia to Ohio, with James
supplementing his farm income by work on
the nation’s turnpike. The couple had nine
children, including Edward, who, like his
father, began his working career as a cartboy on
the primitive highways. Later, Edward went
into the freighting business for himself, hauling
a variety of loads across the Midwest and
Southeast. His father died at age sixty, and his
widowed mother passed away in 1854, the
year Omaha became a reality.
Two years later, Edward headed for the new
territory, accompanied by his brothers, Joseph
and John, and their cousin, James. They found
a town of about six hundred citizens, an
unimpressive collection of structures, and
streets either choked with dust or oozing with
mud. But something in the town appealed to
them, and they decided to stay.
Edward married his Ohio sweetheart, Mary
Lucretia Wareham, and brought her back to
Omaha. He soon landed a job helping to
construct the telegraph line linking Omaha
with St. Joseph, Missouri. Joe Ellis Johnson,
former editor of the Omaha Arrow, now
writing for the Wood River, Nebraska, paper,
the Huntsman Echo, described the event in a
September 1860 newspaper column:
Whoop! Hurrah! The pole—wire—the
telegraph—the lightning! The first are up, the
second stretched, the third playing on the line
between St. Joe and Omaha: and the people of
Omaha are exulting in the enjoyment of direct
communication with the balance of the earth
and mankind…. Thoughts that breathe and
words that burn will glide along the wires
with lightning rapidity.
In addition to connecting Omaha with the
outside world, for Creighton, it was also good
training for the bigger job that lay ahead.
By now, war between the South and the
North seemed inevitable. Abraham Lincoln
and Stephen Douglas had debated the
slavery question, and John Brown’s brief
insurrection had reached its grim conclusion
with his execution.
✧
Top: Henry Latey’s bakery and ice cream
store on the southwest corner of Twelfth and
Douglas about 1872. Latey advertised ice
cream daily as well as fresh strawberries
and oysters in season.
COURTESY OF THE DOUGLAS COUNTY HISTORICAL
SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
Above: The Pioneer Block between Eleventh
and Twelfth Streets on Farnam, about 1872.
It was the strip mall of its day.
COURTESY OF THE DOUGLAS COUNTY HISTORICAL
SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
CHAPTER II
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