THE OMAHA DEE: MONDAY. JUNE 26. 1922.
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Small picture thowi the Intersection of 16th and Douglai streets, look
ing west from Fifteenth street, as this corner appeared in 1873. In the
distance appears the old high school, originally built as the capitol of
the territory of Nebraska. The large picture, showing the view south
from Sixteenth and Douglas streets, shows great retail stores, banks,
hotels and other structures typical of the great shopping district of the
Gate City.
u
All photographs in this teric donated
to the merchant! of Omaha by Louis R.
Boatwick, eommarelal photographer.
A
Financial Agent for the U. S. and desig
nated depository for disbursing off i
cera. This Bank deals in Exchange,
Government Bonds, Vouchers, Gold
Coin, BULLION AND GOLD DUST.
" f-;- 'A.-1 ,: ' ' ' .'
v "Drafts drawn payable in gold or currency
on the . Bank of California, San
Francisco."
Such was part of an advertisement published by.
the Omaha National Bank in The Bee on August
5, 1871. It was one of the few commercial advertisements
in the paper.
Even the most frugal needs of Omaha's pioneers
were supplied with great . difficulty. Up the
"Big Muddy' on flat boats from St1 Louis, and overland
in groaning freight wagons drawn by mules, oxen or horses
came the stocks of Omaha's first storekeepers and traders.
The "Bull-trains," hauling their cargoes of ten or
twenty tons each, would be sadly. inadequate to
supply the stocks in our stores and business houses now.
As the final supply post for the outgoing gold ;
seeker of '49, and the first safe place for the.
deposit of gold and bullion coming from the west, Omaha"
gained fame as the Gate City. This sobriquet is even ,
more apt in its application today. For the thin stream of
people moving across the Overland Trail has become a
vast population, settled for hundreds of miles across the
prairies, and today Omaha serves whole states from its
warehouses and immense' retail stores.
Today the tedious wagon journey of only a few
years ago is accomplished in minutes instead of
hours. The citizen of Blair is no more remote from
Omaha's retail shopping district than was the dweller in
South Omaha only a .few short years ago. The automobile,
whose usefulness has been facilitated by the splendid motpr
roads which converge at Omaha, and the railroad, enabling
citizens in a 40-mile radius to make quick time into the
city, have made buying in Omaha easy and pleasant.
"Keep Step With Omaha ! " Our city has under
gone a metamorphosis from savage prairie to
sophisticated metropolis in less than a century. As it has
grown, its needs have multiplied many hundred-fold. The
pioneer of old would scarce recognize in the plate glass
fronted, towering buildings of our retail district the de
scendants of the frontier stores that supplied his frugal
needs. Omaha's retail business houses deserve unstinted
praise for the manner in which they have kept a step ahead
of Omaha's multitudinous needs.
Factories, shops and looms the whole world over
find in Omaha's retail stores an outlet. This, in
large measure, The Bee believes, is due to the desire of
Omaha's retail business people to serve their trade com
pletely and satisfactorily.
The Bee finds more than ordinary pleasure in
having kept step with Omaha since the paper was
founded by Edward Rosewater in 1871. For over half a
century, The Bee has been a widely employed means of
directing to the stores of Omaha the gigantic buying power
of Omaha's trading area.
This is the second of a series of advertisements on Omaha, "The Retail MarUet," dedicated
to the merchants of Omaha by The Omaha Morning Bee, THE EVENING BEE
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