Thomas Rogers Kimball
Thomas Rogers Kimball was an American architect in Omaha, Nebraska. An architect-in-chief of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha in 1898, he served as national President of the American Institute of Architects from 1918–1920 and from 1919-1932 served on the Nebraska State Capitol Commission. Kimball was credited with pursuing 871 commissions, which included designing 167 new residential buildings and 162 new non-residential structures, served as architectural adviser to commissions responsible for erection of Missouri and Nebraska state capitols, the Kansas City Liberty Memorial, the Indiana state war memorial in Indianapolis, was member of national council of fine arts established by U. S. President Theodore Roosevelt to evaluate all plans for public buildings and statutes. Born April 19, 1862 in Linwood, Ohio, he moved to Omaha, Nebraska with his parents when he was in his early teens. After graduating from high school in 1878, he attended the University of Nebraska for two years, but did not graduate.
He next went to Boston. Kimball entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied architecture until 1887, he did not graduate, but was given an affiliation with the School of Architecture. Kimball moved to Paris, where he spent a year studying art at L'Ecole des Beaux Arts. Returning to Boston in 1888, he began working for a publishing company; the following year, Kimball married Annie McPhail in Boston. In 1891, Kimball formed an architectural firm with MIT instructor C. Howard Walker and architect Herbert Best. Best soon retired. Walker remained in Boston to run the office there. Both operated under the name Kimball. In 1892, Kimball was commissioned to design a public library building in Omaha. Although Kimball had been able to get the job through connections established by his father, railroad executive Thomas Lord Kimball, the younger Kimball was in fact well qualified for the work, he was something of a curiosity in 1890s Omaha, since he had been educated in the East and had studied architecture both in the United States and in France.
Kimball began attracting many high-profile projects in Omaha, including St. Frances Cabrini Church and the Burlington Train Station. In 1893, some of his architectural plans were shown in Chicago at the World Columbian Exposition; the 1898 Trans Mississippi and International Exposition was a World's Fair-like event that required the construction of many buildings. Kimball and Walker were named co-architects-in-chief for the event; the two men were responsible including perimeter buildings. They designed some smaller structures and the Arch of States. "The other'name' architects who were there did a main building and nothing else," Batie said. The buildings were constructed of strips of wood covered with staff, a mixture of plaster and horsehair, they were temporary by design, built at about half the cost of permanent buildings. The lower cost allowed the construction of larger structures. Kimball was successful, but his Exhibition work made him more so. Kimball won commissions for major new projects, such as St. Cecilia Cathedral and the Fontenelle Hotel in Omaha, the Electricity Building at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis.
By 1918, he had gained tremendous stature among his peers and was elected national president of the American Institute of Architects, an office he held until 1920. Kimball was involved in many architecture-related activities, including supervision of the 1920 design contest that selected Bertram Goodhue as architect of the Nebraska State Capitol. In 1927, Kimball went into a partnership with architects William L. Steele and Josiah D. Sandham to form the firm Kimball and Sandham. Among other commissions, the firm designed the Second Church of Christ Scientist and with George B. Prinz were associate architects on the Federal Office Building. However, Kimball functioned as a consultant, having stopped working as an active architect. Kimball's success could not survive the Great Depression, he died a pauper in 1934. Upon his death, partner William L. Steele remarked that Kimball "did not...as the majority of his contemporaries did, absorb a repertoire of French tricks and come home. He studied architecture as building, not as drawings of the buildings.
He seemed to have acquired at an early age that grasp of fundamental principles, to keep him from being stampeded by passing fads." Kimball designed the original Omaha World-Herald building, the First National Bank in Grand Island and the Hastings, Nebraska Railroad Station. At the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition he prepared the layout for the park and designed the Arch of the States, the Administration Building, Transportation Building, the Boys' and Girls' Building. John Latenser, Sr. Joseph P. Guth Architecture in Omaha, Nebraska Omaha Landmarks
Charles Howard Walker
Charles Howard Walker was an architect and educator in Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was affiliated with Boston's Society of Arts and Crafts. With Thomas Rogers Kimball, he worked as architect-in-chief of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition, 1898. Mount Vernon Church, Beacon St. Boston, ca.1892 Trans-Mississippi Exposition, Nebraska, 1898 Bancroft Memorial Library, Massachusetts, ca. 1898 Electricity building, St. Louis World's Fair, 1903 Stony Brook Bridge, Back Bay Fens, Boston William Fogg Library, Maine, 1907 Architecture of the Library. In: Handbook of the new Public library in Boston. Boston: Curtis & Co. 1895. Theory of mouldings. 1926. American Federation of Arts. American art annual. MacMillan Co. 1905. Who's who in New England. A. N. Marquis & Company, 1915. William Emerson. Charles Howard Walker. Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 72, No. 10, pp. 396–397. WorldCat. Walker, Charles Howard 1857-1936 Google news archive.
Articles about C. Howard Walker. Flickr. Photo of nos. 493, 495, 497 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. Bancroft Memorial Librar y in Massachusetts MIT Museum. Portrait by Emil Pollak-Ottendorf of 5 architects: William Felton Brown, Charles Howard Walker, Harry Wentworth Gardner, John Osborne Sumner, William Henry Lawrence. Charles Howard Walker at archINFORM
North Omaha, Nebraska
North Omaha is a community area in Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States. It is bordered by Cuming and Dodge Streets on the south, Interstate 680 on the north, North 72nd Street on the west and the Missouri River and Carter Lake, Iowa on the east, as defined by the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the Omaha Chamber of Commerce. Located just north of Downtown Omaha, the community includes some of the oldest neighborhoods in the city, including the Near North Side, Bemis Park and Florence, it is the site of the Mormon Pioneers' Winter Quarters and the Mormon Temple, a center of European immigration as well as the significant African-American community, the birthplace of Malcolm X. Important landmarks in the community include the Bank of Florence, Prospect Hill Cemetery and the Fort Omaha Historical District. In 2006, North Omaha became the focus of national attention after local State Senator Ernie Chambers introduced an amendment to divide the Omaha school system into three, which some observers suggested would have created de facto segregated school systems based on residential patterns.
The measure was repealed. North Omaha has a recorded history extending to 1812 with the founding of Fort Lisa by Manuel Lisa; the area was home to Cabanne's Trading Post from the 1820s through the 40s, in 1846 became home to two encampments that were some 3½ miles apart from one another: Cutler's Park and Winter Quarters. This whole area became part of what is now the city of Nebraska; when Omaha City was founded in 1854 the boundaries were around the present-day downtown core. Prospect Hill Cemetery, a North Omaha landmark, was founded on a high hill on the outskirts of Omaha in 1856, with more than 15,000 burials it included many of the founding figures of Omaha, as well as soldiers from nearby Fort Omaha and many Blacks who worked throughout the city. During the initial period of Omaha history there were a number of outlying towns surrounding it, many of which were located in present-day North Omaha, including Florence, East Omaha, Saratoga, all of which were settled within a few years of Omaha.
Scriptown was a land grab by early legislators of the Nebraska Territory who sought to award themselves for working for the new territory. Casey's Row was a small neighborhood of Black porters. Squatter's Row was an area between North 11th and North 13th Streets, from Nicholas to Locust Streets, behind the Storz Brewery. For more than 75 years this area was inhabited by squatters. Before the city of Omaha extended north beyond Lake Street Irish settlers inhabited an area known as Gophertown, located north of Saratoga and south of Florence; the towns of Benson and Dundee, both in North Omaha, were suburbs of Omaha founded in the 1880s. Fort Omaha was a U. S. Army installation, built starting in 1878, was home to the Department of the Platte. Growth in North Omaha was spurred by the arrival of the Union Pacific Railroad and railyards to the east; the older neighborhoods in North Omaha were all founded by 1900, including Bemis Park, Gifford Park, Gold Coast, Kountze Place, Miller Park, Walnut Hill and Orchard Hill.
The grand Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition was a world's fair held in North Omaha from June through November 1898. It attracted more than 1,000,000 visitors to the area in and surrounding Kountze Park, which won the location over other areas, including the Miller Park neighborhood; the Expo featured many events in the community, including performances by Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show at the Omaha Driving Park, where it was founded several years prior. In 1909 Omaha University opened in the Redick Mansion in the Kountze Place neighborhood; the most important community, if not the most visible, in all of North Omaha was the Near North Side. This neighborhood was one of the first in Omaha, emerging in the 1860s as a home to the city's influx of German and Irish. In the 19th century, they were joined by eastern European Jewish immigrants and African American migrants from the South; the bustling corridors of North 24th Street and North 16th Street were long the centers of important commercial and social activity.
From the 1920s through the 1950s North 24th Street was seen as a "Street of Dreams" where the city's African-American culture thrived. It was home to such important locations at the Dreamland Ballroom, fostered a variety of social and political developments, including the founding of the Hamitic League of the World. Omaha had early chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League; the early years of noted Harlem Renaissance writer Wallace Thurman were spent in the Near North Side, Jewish feminist author Tillie Olsen grew up in the neighborhood. During this period Malcolm X was born in the neighborhood. After restructuring of railroads and the meatpacking industries, massive job loss resulted in poverty and social unrest. In the 1960s and 70s three major riots tore apart the North 24th Street corridor. One broke out after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968. With lower tax revenue because of job losses, the city had neglected many of the neighborhoods, leading to decreased police response times, decreased funding for education in the community, decreased support for youth and community programs, other problems.
A 1966 documentary film entitled A Time for Burning highlighted the racial tension, driving white flight from the community for the two previous decades. That film portrayed a young Ernie Chambers. A barber who earned a law degree, in 1970 Chambers started his service as the longest serving State Senator in the history of Nebraska; that year's Rice/Poindexter Case proved controversial as two leaders of Omaha's Black
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system on the North American continent, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. Its source is Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota and it flows south for 2,320 miles to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 32 U. S. two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The main stem is within the United States; the Mississippi ranks as the fifteenth-largest river by discharge in the world. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana. Native Americans have lived along its tributaries for thousands of years. Most were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural societies; the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the native way of life as first explorers settlers, ventured into the basin in increasing numbers.
The river served first as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, the early United States, as a vital transportation artery and communications link. In the 19th century, during the height of the ideology of manifest destiny, the Mississippi and several western tributaries, most notably the Missouri, formed pathways for the western expansion of the United States. Formed from thick layers of the river's silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile regions of the United States. During the American Civil War, the Mississippi's capture by Union forces marked a turning point towards victory, due to the river's strategic importance to the Confederate war effort; because of substantial growth of cities and the larger ships and barges that replaced steamboats, the first decades of the 20th century saw the construction of massive engineering works such as levees and dams built in combination. A major focus of this work has been to prevent the lower Mississippi from shifting into the channel of the Atchafalaya River and bypassing New Orleans.
Since the 20th century, the Mississippi River has experienced major pollution and environmental problems – most notably elevated nutrient and chemical levels from agricultural runoff, the primary contributor to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone. The word Mississippi itself comes from Misi zipi, the French rendering of the Anishinaabe name for the river, Misi-ziibi. In the 18th century, the river was the primary western boundary of the young United States, since the country's expansion westward, the Mississippi River has been considered a convenient if approximate dividing line between the Eastern and Midwestern United States, the Western United States; this is exemplified by the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the phrase "Trans-Mississippi" as used in the name of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition, it is common to qualify a regionally superlative landmark in relation to it, such as "the highest peak east of the Mississippi" or "the oldest city west of the Mississippi". The FCC uses it as the dividing line for broadcast call-signs, which begin with W to the east and K to the west, mixing together in media markets along the river.
The Mississippi River can be divided into three sections: the Upper Mississippi, the river from its headwaters to the confluence with the Missouri River. The Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri, it is divided into two sections: The headwaters, 493 miles from the source to Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca, 1,475 feet above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, Minnesota; the name "Itasca" was chosen to designate the "true head" of the Mississippi River as a combination of the last four letters of the Latin word for truth and the first two letters of the Latin word for head. However, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, the waterway's flow is moderated by 43 dams. Fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in the headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation.
The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all contain locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river. Taken as a whole, these 43 dams shape the geography and influence the ecology of the upper river. Beginning just below Saint Paul and continuing throughout the upper and lower river, the Mississippi is further controlled by thousands of wing dikes that moderate the river's flow in order to maintain an open navigation channel and prevent the river from eroding its banks; the head of navigation on the Mississippi is the Coon Rapids Dam in Minnesota. Before it was built in 1913, steamboats could go upstream as far as Saint Cloud, depending on river conditions; the uppermost lock and dam on the Upper Mississippi River is the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock an
New International Encyclopedia
The New International Encyclopedia was an American encyclopedia first published in 1902 by Dodd and Company. It descended from the International Cyclopaedia and was updated in 1906, 1914 and 1926; the New International Encyclopedia was the successor of the International Cyclopaedia. The International Cyclopaedia was a reprint of Alden's Library of Universal Knowledge, a reprint of the British Chambers's Encyclopaedia; the title was changed to The New International Encyclopedia in 1902, with editors Harry Thurston Peck, Daniel Coit Gilman, Frank Moore Colby. The encyclopedia was popular and reprints were made in 1904, 1905, 1907, 1909 and 1911; the 2nd edition appeared from 1914 to 1917 in 24 volumes. With Peck and Gilman deceased, Colby was joined by Talcott Williams; this edition was set up from new type and revised. It was strong in biography. A third edition was published in 1923, however this was a reprint with the addition of a history of the First World War in volume 24, a reading and study guide.
A two-volume supplement was published in 1925 and was incorporated into the 1927 reprint, which had 25 volumes. A further two volumes supplement in 1930 along with another reprint; the final edition was published in 1935, now under the Wagnalls label. This edition included another updating supplement, authored by Herbert Treadwell Wade; some material from the The New International would be incorporated into future books published by Funk and Wagnall's books such as Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopaedia. The 1926 material was printed in Massachusetts, by Yale University Press. Boston Bookbinding Company of Cambridge produced the covers. Thirteen books enclosing 23 volumes comprise the encyclopedia, which includes a supplement after Volume 23; each book contains about 1600 pages. Like other encyclopedias of the time, The New International had a yearly supplement, The New International Yearbook, beginning in 1908. Like the encyclopedia itself, this publication was sold to Funk and Wagnalls in 1931.
It was edited by Frank Moore Colby until his death in 1925, by Wade. In 1937 Frank Horace Vizetelly became editor; the yearbook outlasted the parent encyclopedia, running to 1966. More than 500 men and women submitted and composed the information contained in the The New International Encyclopedia. Walsh, S. P.. Anglo-American general encyclopedias: a historical bibliography, 1703–1967. New York: Bowker. OCLC 577541. Works related to The New International Encyclopedia at Wikisource
Buffalo Bill
William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody was an American scout, bison hunter, showman. He was born in Le Claire, Iowa Territory, but he lived for several years in his father's hometown in Toronto Township, Canada, before the family returned to the Midwest and settled in the Kansas Territory. Buffalo Bill started working at the age of eleven, after his father's death, became a rider for the Pony Express at age 15. During the American Civil War, he served the Union from 1863 to the end of the war in 1865, he served as a civilian scout for the US Army during the Indian Wars, receiving the Medal of Honor in 1872. One of the most colorful figures of the American Old West, Buffalo Bill's legend began to spread when he was only twenty-three. Shortly thereafter he started performing in shows that displayed cowboy themes and episodes from the frontier and Indian Wars, he founded Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1883, taking his large company on tours in the United States and, beginning in 1887, in Great Britain and continental Europe.
Cody was born on February 1846, on a farm just outside Le Claire, Iowa. His father, Isaac Cody, was born on September 5, 1811, in Toronto Township, Upper Canada, now part of Mississauga, directly west of Toronto. Mary Ann Bonsell Laycock, Bill's mother, was born about 1817 near Philadelphia, she moved to Cincinnati to teach school, there she met and married Isaac. She was a descendant of a Quaker who had settled in Pennsylvania. There is no evidence to indicate. In 1847 the couple moved to Ontario, having their son baptized in 1847, as William Cody, at the Dixie Union Chapel in Peel County, not far from the farm of his father's family; the chapel was built with Cody money, the land was donated by Philip Cody of Toronto Township. They lived in Ontario for several years. In 1853, Isaac Cody sold his land in rural Scott County, for $2000, the family moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Territory. In the years before the Civil War, Kansas was overtaken by political and physical conflict over the slavery question.
Isaac Cody was against slavery. He was invited to speak at Rively's store, a local trading post where pro-slavery men held meetings, his antislavery speech so angered the crowd. A man stabbed him twice with a Bowie knife. Rively, the store's owner, rushed Cody to get treatment, but he never recovered from his injuries. In Kansas, the family was persecuted by pro-slavery supporters. Cody's father spent time away from home for his safety, his enemies plotted to kill him on the way. Bill, despite his youth, rode 30 miles to warn his father. Isaac Cody went to Cleveland, Ohio, to organize a group of thirty families to bring back to Kansas, in order to add to the antislavery population. During his return trip he caught a respiratory infection which, compounded by the lingering effects of his stabbing and complications from kidney disease, led to his death in April 1857. After his death, the family suffered financially. At age 11, Bill took a job with a freight carrier as a "boy extra". On horseback he would ride up and down the length of a wagon train and deliver messages between the drivers and workmen.
Next he joined Johnston's Army as an unofficial member of the scouts assigned to guide the United States Army to Utah, to put down a rumored rebellion by the Mormon population of Salt Lake City. According to Cody's account in Buffalo Bill's Own Story, the Utah War was where he began his career as an "Indian fighter": Presently the moon rose, dead ahead of me, he wore this war-bonnet of the Sioux, at his shoulder was a rifle pointed at someone in the river-bottom 30 feet below. I fired; the figure collapsed, tumbled down the bank and landed with a splash in the water.'What is it?' called McCarthy, as he hurried back.'It's over there in the water."Hi!' he cried.'Little Billy's killed an Indian all by himself!' So began my career as an Indian fighter. At the age of 14, in 1860, Cody was struck by gold fever, with news of gold at Fort Colville and the Holcomb Valley Gold Rush in California, On his way to the gold fields, however, he met an agent for the Pony Express, he signed with them, after building several stations and corrals, Cody was given a job as a rider.
He worked at this. Cody claimed to have had many jobs, including trapper, bullwhacker, "Fifty-Niner" in Colorado, Pony Express rider in 1860, stagecoach driver, a hotel manager, but historians have had difficulty documenting them, he may have fabricated some for publicity. Namely, it is argued that in contrast to Cody's claims, he never rode for the Pony Express, but as a boy, he did work for its parent company, the transport firm of Russell and Waddell. In contrast to the adventurous rides, hundreds of miles long, that he recounted in the press, his real job was to carry messages on horseback from the firm's office in Leavenworth to the telegraph station three miles away. After his mother recovered, Cody wanted to enlist as a soldier in the Union Army during the American Civil War but was refused because of his young age, he began working with a freight caravan that delivered supplies to Fort Laramie in present-day Wyoming. In 1863, at age 17, he enlisted as a teamster with the rank of private in Company H, 7th Kansas Cavalry, served until discharged in 1865.
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Bemis Park Landmark Heritage District
The Bemis Park Landmark Heritage District is located in North Omaha, Nebraska. Situated from Cuming Street to Hawthorne Avenue, Glenwood Avenue to 33rd Street, Bemis Park was annexed into Omaha in 1887, developed from 1889-1922; the district was designated an Omaha Landmark in 1983. George Bemis's Bemis Land Company platted this exclusive subdivision in 1889, his namesake park was part of Omaha's parks and boulevard system, the neighborhood's tree-lined streets were the first in Omaha to be laid out according to topography rather than the grid pattern used throughout the rest of the city. The Bemis Park Landmark Heritage District is notable for its mix of late nineteenth and early twentieth century homes. Architecture in Bemis Park includes Queen Anne and Crafts and Neo-Classical style buildings as well as vernacular structures; the district includes a park donated to the city by the subdivision’s developer George Bemis and designed as a part of the developing Omaha parks and boulevard system.
The neighborhood was devastated by the Easter Day Tornado of 1913. According to one report, "This beautiful section of Omaha had been ruined; the pretty homes that adorned the graceful winding driveways were beyond redemption. The trees had been broken off short at the base, many of them were uprooted. One great home had been turned turtle onto the roof of the house adjoining it on the east."In the 1940s, Bemis Park was home to workers from the new Mutual of Omaha headquarters, teachers at the nearby Tech High School, or employees of the Methodist Hospital. According to the City of Omaha, the proposed Bemis Park Residential Historic District is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Neighborhoods of Omaha, Nebraska History of Omaha Period photos of Bemis Park from the 1913 tornado. Story of the 1913 tornado's effect on Bemis Park
. New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
