Historic Omaha

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W. W. Scott took an album of photos after
the 1913 Easter Tornado struck Douglas
County. It was the most devastating storm
in Omaha’s history. In the photo above, we
see Twenty-fourth Street and Lake. In the
photo below, the 1913 Easter Tornado
overturned a streetcar at Forty-eighth and
Leavenworth. The tornado touched down
near Ralston and stayed on the ground all
the way across Omaha.
COURTESY OF THE DOUGLAS COUNTY HISTORICAL
SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
other illicit business ventures. Some charged
that Dahlman was a front man for illegal
interests, but Dennison didn’t see it that
way. He declared, “Laws that people don’t
believe in can’t be enforced if whole armies
tried it.” Dahlman’s lack of strenuous
opposition to Dennison’s lawless activities
may have been no more than pragmatism and
self-interest.
Not everyone was happy with the lawless
state of their city. Frustrated with “politics as
usual,” in 1912 the citizens of Omaha changed
from a mayor-council to a “commission” form
of government. This style of city government
called for a non-partisan, citywide election of
seven commissioners. Once chosen, the
commissioners elected a mayor and department
heads from among their own ranks.
Under the new system, Dahlman continued as
mayor. Even with the new system, it took
years to make serious inroads into the
Dennison machine.
The candidates formed slates before the
general election, established their political
platforms, and then stated the offices that they
were most interested in filling, from mayor to
chief of police. The slates referred to
themselves by names like the “Allied Slate”
and the “Committee of Five Thousand.” They
competed to prove themselves the most
progressive and reform minded. Most favored
Prohibition and opposed corruption and
prostitution. However, it would take six years
for the commission form of government to
reach the height of its popularity, when the
first slate of “reformers” was elected in 1918.
But the Dennison crowd wouldn’t stay down
for long.
While Omahans waited to see how their
new form of government would work, a force
of nature visited them once again, but this
time it wasn’t a flood or a blizzard, but a
tornado. Some citizens even saw it as God’s
retribution for Omaha’s political sins.
The tornado arrived in the afternoon of
Sunday, March 23, 1913. According to the
next day’s edition of the Omaha World-Herald,
“Death and destruction unparalleled in the
history of Omaha traveled with a terrific
tornado which mowed a wide and gruesome
path through the city late yesterday afternoon.
A balmy spring day typical in its fleeting
glimpses of the sun and threatening of
showers, developed into a driving rainstorm
and then, in the twinkling of an eye, into a
devastating monster of annihilation. And as
the dead were carried to the morgues and the
maimed moaned from the wreckage, and the
yellow sky glowed with the carmine reflection
of hundreds of burning homes, it was recalled
that it was Easter Sunday!”
The World-Herald described the storm as a
“wind demon” that came “careening over the
prairies from the southwest and drove a
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