OUTLOOK
SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2017
FOUNDATION FOR GROWTH By David Hendee // WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER Omaha was a territorial capital wallowing in streets of mud, stewing in political intrigue and echoing with whistles of riverboats and railroad locomotives when Nebraska steamed toward statehood in early 1867.
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city’s crude and undeveloped appearance was striking. It was a typical frontier outpost in the Old West, said David Bristow, editor of Nebraska History magazine at the State Historical Society. Boardwalks linked businesses. Residents pumped water from private or community wells and answered the call of nature in back-door privies. • “When you look at photos of that period, Omaha looks like it somehow just plopped down on the prairie,’’ Bristow said. • But it was a time of tremendous growth. Omaha-dominated Douglas County started the decade of the 1860s with 4,300 people. The population was 20,000 by 1870. Change was constant. • See Hendee: Page 2