The Prairie Capital: An Urban History of Lancaster, Nebraska

[Jakobus]

The land that presently constitutes Lancaster County was widely disregarded as arid and unusable by civilization until shockingly recently. Apart from infrequent expeditions, the white man did not deem the floodplains of the Salt Creek to be meriting further development; the “Great American Desert” was not worth the trouble of taming. In a mere century, all of these previous assumptions have been challenged and found to be without substance. Lancaster County is now the seat of the capital city of one of the most agricultural states in the Union, and the county itself supports over 100,000 citizens.
It is widely believed that the first white settler in the area was one John W. Prey, who built a residence in what would one day become Lancaster County in June of 1856. However, it was steamboat Captain W. T. Donovan, who arrived later that very year, that would leave the larger footprint on the community that was to come...
A History of Lancaster County: 1859-1959 (University of Nebraska Press)

When the village of Lancaster was first founded in 1856, it was reportedly one Captain Donovan, a former steamer pilot and present employee of the Crescent salt company, who suggested the name. Donovan, the story goes, had spent some time in his youth in the Pennsylvania town of the same name, and evidently still harbored fond memories of his years there. In 1859, a committee featuring Donovan would select Lancaster as the seat of the county that would share its name. Although the Donovan family would later leave their settlement on the Salt Creek that same year, the village itself would continue to grow. However, rapid growth of the town would not begin in earnest until the passage of the Homestead Act in 1862 and the Treaty of Halifax in 1863, which drove thousands of settlers west in search of a new life, or a new start...
Lancaster: The Lilac City (Lee Publishing)

Chapter One: City of Salt
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On February 1, 1867, President Seymour signed the proclamation officially admitting Nebraska as the 37th state. However, the entrance of Nebraska into the Union only exacerbated tensions that had previously been dormant. During the territorial years, Omaha had served as the capital city. While today, travel across the Platte River is a relatively easy affair on any of the several highway and railroad bridges, fording the river in frontier times was a much more challenging endeavor. The Platte was exceptionally wide, as much as a mile in some places, so the construction of a simple bridge spanning the water was out of the question. The river was also exceeding shallow and fraught with submerged sandbars and logs, making it only nominally navigable except in specific areas. Finally, the very same riverbed hid beds of quicksand and surprisingly fast currents, making fording the river outright a challenge for even the bravest men.

As a result of the division caused by the Platte, travel and communication between the areas of the state located north and south of the river was difficult even in ideal circumstances. Prior to the War of Secession, a group of South Platters, including Territorial Secretary J. Sterling Morton, had petitioned Congress to separate the parts of the territory south of the river and append it to Kansas. In 1867, however, the political landscape of the new state had changed. While Omaha remained the largest and most developed settlement in Nebraska, a clear majority of the population resided south of the Platte, and under newly elected Governor Morton, they were resolved to see the capital moved to a new location, preferably one in the south.

While the Omaha contingent fought hard to preserve their status, the legislature passed the Removal Act of 1867 in their first session. The Removal Act called for a commission, consisting of Governor Morton, State Secretary of State Thomas Kennard, and State Auditor John Gillespie, to investigate potential locations for a new seat of government. While a substantial movement existed pushing for the legislature to move to Nebraska City, Lancaster County was a clear frontrunner for any new capital. The committee hoped that the salt flats and marshes of Lancaster County would provide industry for the community beyond the functions of state, and in the understandings of the time, the county existed as near to the center of the state as could support human life. The committee of men thus embarked south, for Lancaster, with the express aim of finding or building a community that could become a metropolis on the plains.

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I have always been intrigued by alternate histories of the American Civil War. The years of 1861 through 1865 impacted the United States in ways that are impossible to comprehend. The Revolutionary period ensured the independence of the American nation, but the Lincoln's "new birth of freedom" made it the nation we know today. As much as I love Civil War alternate histories, the genre is frankly oversaturated, and for every Cinco de Mayo there are five Lost Cause LARPs. More than anything else, that is what motivated me to attempt a smaller scale version of this setting, a timeline focused entirely on one city. We'll see how this goes.

 

[KingSweden24]

Thanks for the shoutout! I’m always interested in city/state-specific AHs so I’ll be intrigued to see where this goes

 

[Jakobus]

Yet the village of Lancaster itself was not the only candidate: Saline City, also known as Yankee Hill, initially possessed a fair amount of traction itself. Saline City, home to one Mr. John Cadman, was understandably eager to secure its spot as the capital. The exploratory committee visited Saline City twice, staying at the Cadman residence on both occasions. Cadman, fearing that Saline City would be passed over for a different location, then set about on a course of action that would inadvertently bring about the very outcome that he had sought to avoid. In order to promote his town’s chances, he asked his wife to prepare a grand feast for the commission on the last night of their stay at Cadman’s Silver Lake Farm. The feast, consisting of such delicacies as fried chicken and the first ice cream ever produced in Nebraska, was served on the east lawn and seemed to impress the visitors. The commission departed Saline City and voted on the final location for the capital in the cabin of none other than Captain William Donovan, who had returned to Lancaster County. After a short deliberation, the committee revealed that the preferred location for the capital was not Saline City, but Lancaster itself; evidently the production of ice cream in the heart of the Nebraska summer was seen as an act of overt bribery. Skeptics questioned whether the selection of Lancaster was in any way related to J. Sterling Morton’s commercial interests in the salt flats, but their voices quickly faded. On August 14, 1867, Lancaster was officially declared the new capital city. Thus the first ice cream social in the state led to the ascension of Lancaster as the seat of the Nebraska government.

 

[Jakobus]

Secretary of State Thomas Kennard, a member of the original capital commission, set about transforming the village by the salt flats into a modern capital city. He revised the plat of the original settlement, placed ads in Omaha, Plattsmouth, and Nebraska City newspapers to find an architect for the new legislative house, and arranged for an auction of lots to fund future development. The auction was scheduled for the 17th of September.

The sale of land in the new town was not as easy of a process as the commission anticipated. Although the commission had arranged the services of a brass band and seasoned auctioneer, an entire day passed before a single lot was purchased, with a marginal advance. The commission quickly went into crisis mode. The men who had selected the site of the capital had initially agreed not to participate in the auction to assuage suspicions of speculation. However, it now seemed more important to express confidence in the location. The commission thus used $10,000 loaned from a Nebraska City syndicate to purchase as many lots as possible to increase public interest in the new city.

Kennard himself purchased a lot on H Street and built a handsome house in 1869. The house is the oldest building still standing in Lancaster today.

 

[Jakobus]

Kennard’s efforts to find a Nebraska architect to design the state capitol were unsuccessful, so inquiries were placed in the pages of the Chicago Tribune. It was in this way that one James Morris came to design the first Nebraska statehouse. The only applicant, Morris’ building would only house the legislature for eleven years before its demolition.

 

[Jakobus]

The interior of the new capitol was to be furnished with the contents of the old territorial capitol in Omaha. However, the residents of Douglas County were proving to be less than willing to part with the library and furniture of the old seat of power. In a desperate move, State Auditor Gillespie hired Lancaster local J.T. Beach to retrieve the precious cargo of state. Beach and an accomplice rode north to Ashland, crossed the frozen Platte, and arrived in Omaha on Saturday morning.

Unfortunately, the two South Platte agents quickly ran out of cash, and their attempts to redeem a $40 warrant from a Lancaster account at a saloon raised suspicions. The saloon-keeper's refusal to honor the warrant led to a physical confrontation between himself and Mr. Beach, and after two broken bones and a shattered window, the two Lancaster men were kept in an Omaha jail overnight before being expelled from Douglas County.

 

[Jakobus]

Furious, Gillespie reached out to Kennard to lead a second attempt to retrieve the holdings of the old government. The furniture of the territorial capitol could be replaced, but the all-important library was necessary for the functions of government. Kennard and two men embarked north, but remained in Ashland for several nights when the winter weather did not permit them to ford the Platte. This allowed word of the initial attempt to recover the library to spread throughout Omaha, and the citizens of that city were emboldened by their initial victory. They were now determined to retain the documents, and thereby somehow retain their position as state capital.

The Kennard team arrived in Omaha in the middle of a late December snowstorm and spent the first day sequestered in an abandoned barn at the edge of the city. Kennard made contact with one Mr. Yost, a US Marshall and business partner of his that occasionally aided him in the illicit shipment of cider from Omaha to Lancaster. While the details of the night the library was stolen are incomplete, it seems Kennard and Yost somehow obtained the contents of the old capitol, loaded them onto two wagons, and the South Platte party headed back to Lancaster. Remembering their initial trouble fording the river at Ashland, Kennard instead directed his group towards the crossing at La Platte. Unknown to Kennard, the La Platte ferry was managed by the Kimball brothers, who sympathized with the North Platte cause. At the crossing, the Kimballs sabotaged the ferry and sent notice to Omaha informing them of the location of Kennard and his accomplices.

It is very possible that the library, furniture, and state seal would have fallen back into the hands of the Omaha contingent at this point had it not been for the presence of gunman Tom Keller. Keller was an outlaw who later caught a pound of lead in a shootout in Ogallala, but he was also a South Platter. Keller seems to have held the Kimball brothers at gunpoint and forced them to repair the ferry, at which point Kennard and his accomplices made it across the Platte River at last. Kennard and company made it back to Lancaster before New Years Day 1868. The aggrieved Omaha party wired the Secretary of the Interior to report the “theft” before being summarily informed that, while unorthodox, the actions of the state government were entirely in order. The Great Library Caper, as it has come to be called over the years, has become a staple of eastern Nebraska folklore, and an annual race across the river at Plattsmouth is now held between Omaha and Lancaster teams to commemorate the event.

 

[Jakobus]

Having finished the assembly of the matters of state, the Lancaster government set about constructing a state university and penitentiary. The University of Nebraska, later hailed as the Princeton of the Plains, thus began its life in February of 1869 on an empty lot north of town. Governor Morton was insistent during the planning of the campus (little more than one University Hall) that effort be made towards the planting of trees on the grounds of the institution. Little more than a simple windbreak was planted during his administration, but it was a sign of things to come, as the University, and city at large, soon became renowned for their dense and rich foliage. To this day, the NU football team is still known as the Treeplanters.

J. Sterling Morton’s fascination with trees extended beyond the University. He declared the first Arbor Day on April 10, 1870, and during his time in office tens of thousands of trees were planted across the state. Morton, an opponent of the removal of healthy trees, famously refused to display a Christmas tree in either the state capitol or the Governor’s Mansion, a tradition that continues to the present day.

 

[Jakobus]

In 1869, the Nebraska Legislature authorized the purchase of 80 acres for use as a municipal cemetery. Originally planned for a site along the Salt Creek, the cemetery was instead constructed east of the city after concerns arose about the seasonal flooding the creek experienced. Wyuka Cemetery, named after an Otoe word meaning “place of reclining”, is hailed today as one of the best examples of the rural cemetery style in the United States and is the final resting place of many famous Lancasterites.

On the Fourth of July 1870, the steam engine Wauhoo reached the newly constructed Lancaster Station.

Lancaster entered the 1870s as a rapidly growing community. Under Kennard’s revision of the original plat, the settlement’s southernmost street, Locust Street, was to become the main thoroughfare for the new capital. The legislature provided funds for the construction of a mental institution. Perhaps vindictively, the State Lunatic Asylum was built on 160 acres just north of Yankee Hill, the runner-up candidate for the seat of government. Construction was delayed by a large fire at the site, contributing to later rumors that the land was cursed. The Asylum opened in January of 1871.

The State Penitentiary was completed in 1876 without incident, and prisoners were quickly put to work in Saltillo quarrying and cutting magnesia limestone. Parts of the original penitentiary are still in use.

In 1870, newspaper editor Charles H. Gere announced that the weekly Lancaster State Journal would begin daily distribution. Gere’s primary motivation was the rapid growth of the community and the coming of the railroads. In its second decade, Lancaster was connected to the world by the Burlington and Missouri line, as well as by the Atchinson and Nebraska, the Midland Pacific, and the Omaha and South Western. The capital city thus became an important emigrant staging point. Among these travelers were a sizeable contingent of “nickajacks”, or Southern Unionists who moved north and west after the War of Secession.

 

[Jakobus]

As a land-grant college, the University of Nebraska was required to offer education in the agricultural arts. For this purpose, the Board of Regents set up a model farm in the northern part of the city campus. After several complaints over the stench produced by keeping hog sheds on campus, a group of students led by a young Roscoe Pound fired the ROTC cannon into the sheds, leading to the buildings to burn down and take quite a few hogs with them. Taking the hint, the administration purchased a new tract of land northeast of the city and placed Pound, future dean of the Harvard Law School, under academic probation.

 

[Jakobus]

In light of the economic downturn and cost of building a metropolis on the prairie, in 1872 the Lancaster city council authorized the printing of $10,000 worth of paper banknotes. However, after the 1873 Currency Act, the council declined to issue the notes. Regardless, large numbers of the notes were discovered in circulation, prompting a Secret Service investigation. To this day, caches of illegal banknotes are occasionally found within the walls of old buildings.

1874 saw the opening of the Lancaster Street Railway, which would go on to become a tentpole of civic pride up until the modern era. The railway began its days under horsepower but became one of the first streetcar lines in the country to convert to electricity.

 

[Jakobus]

In 1877, Mexican Emperor Maximilian stayed in the city one night during his infamous buffalo hunt with entrepreneur and showman William Frederick Cody. The Imperial Hotel on 9th and Q was named such because the emperor allegedly spent his night in Lancaster on the premises. While no evidence supporting this claim exists, the emperor’s nephew and heir Francisco Fernando did stay at the hotel during his 1909 continental tour. The famed actor Oscar Wilde also stayed at the Imperial in 1883. The Imperial Hotel was razed in 1964 and the present site is occupied by the Imperial Bar and Grill.

 

[KingSweden24]

This is great stuff, especially a surviving Max 😉

I’d threadmark your updates, though, to make it easier to navigate back as your TL develops

 

[Jakobus]

This is great stuff, especially a surviving Max 😉

I’d threadmark your updates, though, to make it easier to navigate back as your TL develops

Thanks, I'll do that.
Maximilian wasn't even initially planned, I just need a replacement for Grand Duke Alexis and decided, since Cinco de Mayo partially inspired me, I might as well use the emperor of Mexico.

 

[KingSweden24]

Thanks, I'll do that.
Maximilian wasn't even initially planned, I just need a replacement for Grand Duke Alexis and decided, since Cinco de Mayo partially inspired me, I might as well use the emperor of Mexico.

That’s very kind of you!

 

[PGSBHurricane]

Nice to see the Great Plains get more attention. It feels like way too many TLs neglect this region.

 

[Jakobus]

Despite the outward prosperity, storm clouds hung low on the horizon. The Morris Capitol was built with limestone that had quickly deteriorated, and the statehouse was quite literally crumbling around the legislature. In fact, the governor issued a proclamation forbidding the members of the legislature from applauding or stamping their feet lest the building suffer further damages. The need to build a new capitol led many communities further west clamoring for the removal of the capitol to a city closer to the center of the state. However, unlike with the united front of the South Platter movement, the infighting between the Kearny, Columbus, and Clarks contingents made any motion to remove the capitol from Lancaster dead on arrival.

The legislature passed an appropriation in 1879 to build a three-story western wing to the capitol. The wing was completed in 1882, but it was soon apparent that the wing overshadowed the existing structure. The legislature approved the construction of a matching east wing, with the plan of eventually connecting with wings with a new central section. In 1888, the state’s second capitol, designed by William Willcox, was completed.

 

[Jakobus]

The first municipal well, located in Liberty Park at 7th and F, was dug in 1882 and supplied more than a million gallons of water daily for the city. However, by 1887 the reserve of the first well was nearly exhausted, and attempts to sink wells in other areas of the city found the Lancaster water table consisted largely of saline water. A potable location was finally found along the Antelope Creek watershed, but to this day most Lancaster water is pumped in from Ashland via aqueduct.

In 1885, the City Council voted to establish a full-time paid fire department to replace the three companies of volunteer fireman that had previously service the city. The Lancaster Fire Department would use horse-drawn and steam-driven engines until well into the twentieth century.

 

[Jakobus]

In 1883, Irish nationalist Patrick Egan arrived in the city. The following year, he moved the headquarters of his own Irish National Land League to the city. During his time in Lancaster, the presence of the INLL raised ethnic and religious tensions in the city. In less than 10 years, the League raised over $350,000 and sent the funds to revolutionaries in the old country.

 

[Jakobus]

Lancaster may have appeared to be the platonic ideal of the nineteenth century new metropolis, but it experienced growing pains, and it did still exist on the fringe edge of the wild frontier. Perhaps no greater example for this can be found than the events that unfolded in the autumn of 1887. Andrew J. Sawyer, a Lancaster historian, was elected mayor on a platform of reform, and reform-minded candidates similarly swept the city council. Police Judge Albert Parsons, elected the year prior but with one year left in his term, had different priorities. In August 1887, a complaint was fined with the city council by a group of gamblers accusing Parsons of pocketing fine money. It soon became clear that Parsons, charged with fining gamblers $10 per charge within the capital city, had decided to retain the funds confiscated rather than turning it over to the county treasurer.

The council and mayor moved to remove Parsons from his post. However, Parson’s attorney obtained a restraining order against the city council from the US circuit court judge in St. Louis. The Lancaster city council argued that a federal court had no jurisdiction over the inner workings of a municipal body, and Mayor Sawyer sent a group of LPD officers to remove Parsons from the position of Police Judge and install one H.J. Whitmore in his stead. Parsons fled Lancaster and complained once more to the judge in St. Louis. The judge ordered the city council to appear in court in Omaha. When they refused, a group of federal agents led by Deputy US Marshall Allen were sent to arrest the entirety of the Lancaster city council, as well as the mayor.