w
The Omaha Sunday Bee
PAKT III.
A Pspor for tti Memo
THE OMAHA DEE
Oest ':. 'West
IIALF-TOIIE, SECTION
PACK! 1 TO f -
VOL. XXXVH NO. 14.
OMAHA, SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 22, 1907.
SINGLE COPY FIVE CENTS,
PROPOSED COURT HOUSE BUILDING FOR DOUGLAS COUNTY
THE accompanying picture la a reproduction of the archi
tects perspective drawing for a new court house for Doug-
las county. The Inadequacy of the present court house
building, erected more than twenty-Ore years ago, to
meet the enlarged needs of the county's business and the
convenience attending the transaction of public business in It led
he county commissioners a few months ago to engage Architect
ohn Latenser to prepare plans for a new building to take Us place
tth the purpose of submitting a court house bond proposition to the
voters at the coming election, in case public sentiment appeared to
favor the project.
The great problem presented to the archl- . 1
trci wu 10 provide ror the erection of a new
building on the present court house squar
without destroying the old building until after
tlie new one should have been completed. The
necessity of preserving the old buiUlng is due
to (he fact thatfcno sufficient accommodations
would be available to house the county offices
and to protect against Irreparable loss the
raluable public records used in the various
branches of the county administration.
The accompanying picture shows the new
building as it would appear after the old
building had been removed and gives an Idea
not only of the Imposing character of the pro
posed struc ture, but also of. the impressive
beauty of ths approaches and entrance across
tho open plot of ground extending along the
whole north front, which would focus
Omaha's civic center of the future. It also
shows In the background in proper perspec
tive the adjoining buildings, particularly the
new Young Men's Christian association build
ing. Which would be greatly enhanced in
artistic effect by the contrast with the classic
lines of the new court house.
In grappling with the problem of utilizing
to advantage the unoccupied space In the
court houso square they architect has worked
out a scheme complying with the require
ments of the situation. He declared that it
should be a matter of congratulation that the
old building was placed just where it is, close
up to the Farnam street line, because for this
reaton alone Is room left on the other side to
erect the new building without injury to Its
design and without taking the old building
away in the course of construction. '
It Is proposed to build around the present
building in the shape almost of an "H." The
excavations would be made bo that the first
floor of the new' building would be about on
the lever of Farnam and Elshteenth streets.
There Is I fall of ten feet In Farnam Btreet
from Eighteenth to Seventeenth streets,
which elves an elevation to the east end of
the building and permits a basement entrance
on Seventeenth street, through which a driveway could be laid out.
The main entrance, of course, Is on Farnam street, as shown In the
picture. In the center, of the north front, with projecting wings on
each side, the space between and in front of the wings being parked
nd ornamented to form a suitable approach for the building.
Perspective view from the Farnam Street Side of the
magnificent New Building proposed to be substituted
for the present Inadequate and Antiquated Court House
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either dirnctly to the Jail or stopped at the sheriff office to go
through, the necessary forms of registering and recording.
The Interior corridor arrangement is governed by the require
ments for light and air. The dome, visible from the outside, sur
mounts a circular light well reaching the entire height of the build
Ing. There are also four smaller light wells, two of them forming
the cores of two sets of stairways, conveniently located for move
ment from floor to floor without making use of the elevators. The
street entrances are through three large double doors on each of
the two sides of the building facing north and "south. This glvei
the Harney street side almost equal access and prominence as th
- Farnam street side and makes a straight
thoroughfare throuch the center of the build
ing between these two entrances.
The old court house, which would be sup
planted by the new one should it be erected,
bas been occupied since the early '80s, and
although when built', It was regarded as one
of the finest structures of its kind In this part
of the country, It has long since been out
grownt The foundation for the old court
house was originally laid In an excavation
far below the street level in anticipation of
further grading of Farnam street This grad
ing was later done, leaving It on a high hill,
and then again still later the street was cut
tome fifteen feet more, making necessary the
high and steep steps by which the court house
Is now reached. The absence of elevators and
the Inability to Jnstall elevators because of
the peculiar construction of the building has
made It particularly burdensome to the peo
ple who are compelled to climb the stairs day
In and day out, and many serious accident
have been the result.
,, tilx.5W.i: i
Old Oouri House Outgrown
PERSPECTIVE fclUtwiNQ OF PROPOSED DOUGLAS COUfJTT COURT HOUSE TITOM PULN3 PREPARED BY JOHN LATENSER, ARCHITECT.
4
Monumental in Its Proportions
N Something of an idea of the monumental size of the structure as
planned may be had from a few figures. The length of the Farnam
and Harney street fronts is 265 feet, tae width of each pavilion at
the aide 88 feet and the width of tho central portion is 169 feet. The
east and west fronts of the building are each 160 feet long. This
makes the approach IS 4 feet from the Farnam street lot line at the
nearest point, while a ten-foot space intervenes between the building
and the sidewalk on the east and west sides, and on Harney Btreet
the entrance la also about ten feet from the Bldewalk line. The
height of the building at the center of the main entrance Is 113 feet
and the top of the dome it 168 feet above the street level at the
same point.
Eight huge columns form the supporting colonnade. These col
umns measure five feet in diameter and forty-two feet in height
No columns of such monumental size are to be found in any build
ing in this section of the country and the columns form the best
index to the architectural spirit o a great public building In which
the evidence of multiplicity of small parts la said always to be one
of the most solid merits of tae design. '
In technical terms the style of the building is neo-classlo, but
without slavish adherence to a distinct school., the aim being to strike
a happy medium between a strictly monumental building and a mod
ern office building, with afcundant light and air. Although planned
to be amply large for many years to come, if any future enlargement
should be necessary it can easily be provided without marring the
symmetry of the building or destroying its architectural effect by ad
ding a central foature in tho Faraam street side corresponding to the
end pavilions and carrying the main entrance further forward.
The floor plans for tho interior arrangement have been worked
out by Mr. Latenser after suggestions by the various county officers
with a view to meeting their ideas of the requirements of space, lo
cation, vault room and proximity to other offices. The main floor
Is to be devoted to those branches of the county business which have
most to do with the public so that the people transacting business
.with them- may make their entrance and exit without climbing the
stairs or riding la tho elevators.
i
Layout of the Main Floor
Coming in the front ontranoo tho office of the treasurer Is at the
left and of the county cleric at tho .right, the quarters of the county
clerk connecting with those of the tax commissioner, which are
closely allied. In corresponding rooms en the other side is the space
allotted to tho comptroller oa the left aad to the register of deeds
on tho right Each' of these oAces have ample lobby room in front
of the counters for tho public and largo vault spaces to house the
records and other documents of value. The counter lino for the
treasurer measures over 100 feet The elevators are straight ahead
of the entrance across tho court lighted from the dome.
The second floor plat shows the accommodations for the county
commissioners, with a publlo meeting room and adjoining commit
tee room, and a small office room for each member of tho county,
hoard. Tho county court is located on this floor with a commodious
court room, office room and vault and a private room tor tho Judge
and another reception room especially adapted to tho purpose of
solemnising marriage services. The county superintendent is pro
vided with a public and private office and a large teachers' examina
tion room. Tho county surveyor secures offices with north llghta
for blue print and draughting rooms, with a private office aad vault
for his records. Tho clerk of the district court is established on
this floor immediately above the county treasurer, with ampl space
for accommodating the publlo and private rooms for his recording
and copying force, as well as for himself. A small space is also de
voted to a desk for a public stenographer for the accommodation of
, lawyers who may want to copy records or dictate legal documents
In haste. v
Special Scheme for the Court Rooms
The third and fourth floors are essentially the court room floors
tnd bring into play tho strong feature of the building as designed in
the two lateral pavllllons extending along the east and west ends.
Each of these are divided so as to contain two sets of court rooms,
with accessory offices for Judges, court reporters, witnesses and
Juries. The Brace is so divided as to draw the court rooms toward
4b ctfiitefejlrila light ami ventilation from the side streets and in
terior light walls. Thus they are removed from the noise of passing
street cars and other vehicles on Farnam and Harney Btieets. There
are eight court rooms, including that assigned to the juvenile court,
really one more than is at present required,
' The arrangement of the space for the juvenile court has been
made to conform largely with suggestions based upon the experi
ence of. the judges who' have had personal charge of the juvenile
court work. It enables the Judge to keep the children and the wit
nesses in different cases separated from one another and likewise to
separate the boys and the girls, assuring them of the utmost privacy
consistent with appearanee in a public court.
v The law courts have attached to them quarters for the Juries,
each including a lounging room with a small consultation room and
smoking compartment. Each is also provided with coat and hat
closets and toilets. The lounging room Is large enough to permit of
the introduction of cots to take care of a jury that might be confined
pending trial for any length of time. .
On the third floor the north front opening on the colonnade is
given to the county attorney and his assistants and on the fourth
floor It is assigned to the sheriff and his deputies. The criminal
court room on the fourth floor is considerably larger than the other
court rooms and Is entered directly from a special corridor opening on
the sheriff's offices, into which also goes a private sheriff's elevator to
bring prisoners from the jail without exposing them either to tho
danger of escape or to the public view in transit
While the detailed plan has not been drawn for the top floor, the
purpose is to place the Jail there and make it conform in every re
spect to the most modern ret ulremeats of jail architecture, especially
for keeping different classes of prisoners separated and also .for
providing lighting, ventilating and plumbing accessories. The pri
vate sheriff's elevator, already referred to, leads from the Jail floor
with only one stop,at the sheriff's office down to the basement floor,
opening on the court there and approaching by a drive through the
Seventeenth street arch. Prisoners brought in from outside would
therefore come in in patrol wagons from the street, to be unloaded
directly into the waiting room at the foot of this elevator and taken
At first the accommodations in the court
house appeared to be sufficient for the bust
tiess of the county, but with the Increase of
the number of courts and the expansion of
the work of the different offices the offices
had to be transferred from one room to an
other and the basement, which was never in
tended for anything but , storage purposes,
had to be used for office accommodations.
There are now many rooms in the building
constantly occupied where it is necessary to
have artificial light almost all the time in or
der to permit of clerical work. In addition
to this a number of county offices have been
crowded out of the building altogether. For
many years three court rooms were main
tained in The Bee building and one of them
Is still there. The county attorney's offioes
are located in ino iNew xora iaio ouiMung
and the county treasurer's office has been removed since its merger
with the city treasury into the city hall, across the street The Jail
and Jailer's quarters are in a separate building on one corner of tht
court house grounds, and this building, too, has become unservice
able and overcrowded.
The worst feature of the old court house is its utter lack of facil
ities to take care of juries both during the trial of cases and when
the Jurors are out deliberating on their verdicts. In some instance!
the juries have been sent to hotels in order to provide decent quart
ters for them. In others they have been conflnd in small rooms,
according to them no better treatment than is enjoyed by the pris
oners who are awaiting punishment for their crimes.
The agitation for a new court house has arisen periodically and
the pressure for action from these sources, particularly from the
lawyers and Jurymen compelled to wait on the courts, is what finally
induced the commissioners to take steps for the drawing of plans
looking toward relief of the existing situation in case the project
meets with popular approval. .
Searching for Fossils in Nebraska and Wyoming
THE members of the expedition sent out
from Amherst college last June in search
of fossils in certain sections of Nebraska
and Wyoming have returned to the col
lege laden with valuable finds. The ex
pedition consisted of Prof. F. B. Loomis and two
classmen, John Hubbard and W. J. Parmalee.
Outfitting at Rapid City, 8. D., the party pro
ceeded south about 150 miles to Agate, on the
Wyoming-Nebraska line, where the principal fos
sils were found. Speaking of the work there. Prof,
Loomis said:
"The fossils were what we went for essentially,'
and we prospected the country about Agate for
teveral days, and finally found the fossil camel.
We were prospecting about two miles east of
A gate and four miles down stream I am giving
these exact locations bo that anyone who wishes
may be able to find it when we came to a hill at
the base of which there were numerous sprinklings
of camel bones. These bones also appeared oa the
slope of the hill, and they were pretty good evi
dence to us that there was something else to bo
found above. So we went to work and carefully
examined the hillside, climbing aU the time, until
we came, about half way up the slope, to a place
where the bones no longer showed on the slope,
and we then decided that it was time to dig into
the bank, for the fossils wereevidenUy In tho
strata at that point"
Prof. Loomis then described the process of ex
tracting tho fossils from tlve sandstone in which
they were found. They had nothing to cut with
but large Jackknives, which were sufficient for the
work, however, as the sandstone formation was
not very hard and did not make the work very
hard, although it was rather hard on the knives.
After a fossil had been discovered the men set to
work to cut away the stone about It, leaving the
hone embedded in a large block, which was taken
out entire. The size of these blocks containing the
fossils differed in sice according to the size of the
animal, and some of them were rather weighty.
After a groove, or ditch, had been cut around tho
whole fossil, in tho rock to a depth which would
be below the bottom of the fossU, gum arable was
brought into action and the whole block was
soaked in it This hardened the sandstone. Com
mon flour paste was tho next thing used for treat
ment, and cloths saturated in it were laid on the
top and wrapped on tho aides of the block of stone,
nntll the whole exyosed surfaoe of the block was
entirely covered with them. This, after hardening,
forms a very excellent covering and protection tor
the block, and U left on until the work of dissec
tion is taken up in the labrotory. After the top
aad sides of tho block hal teen covered and made
impervious the work of cutting the bottom away
was started, and everything was cut away with the
exception of a small pillar of stone in the center
of the bottom, on which the whole thing rested.
The members of the party worked on this hill
ear Agate for about a week and got the remains
of twelve numbered camels, all of a new species.
This species of camel stood about four feet algh
and were very slender animals, about as slender
as a gazelle. Sheep bones are heavy and stubby
in comparison with them. The remains of both
old and young animals were found, and the finds
were all made at the base of the mlocene strata,
which would indicate, conservatively, an age of
about 1,500,000 years at the least . The sandstone
in 'which they were found is a flood plain deposit,
and in it were also found the ankle bones and
other remains of forty-three camels la addition to
the numbered ones taken out, bo that Indications
of at least fifty-five animals were found at that
one point. The supposition is that they were sur
rounded by water on the point of land at that
point and drowned, but this theory 1b mere con
jecture. The formation Is just such a one as the
Hadley meadows would show if excavated. After
the work at this point had been finished the re
mains found were taken in the wagon to the rail
road station some miles distant and shipped to
Amherst
Bones of Rhinoceros Found
It was Just after this that the party ran-into
a man named James Cook, a rancher, who told,
them of two small hills in his pasture, where the
expedition from the Carnegie institute of Pitts
burg had discovered several remains, but had not
exhausted the place. The party therefore went
with him to the spot and stayed there two weeks.
The discoveries there were also somewhat un
usual, for the skulls of seven rhinoceros were
found, together with the limb bones of many
others. These bones indicated four different
species of rhinoceros. One- species had a per
fectly smooth nose, on which there were no horns
at all. Then there were the remains of a large
animal, with the nasal bones very close together,
and on which the horns were also tlo.se together.
The third, which was a smaller animal, bad the
nasal bones diverging,' and the horns also di
verged. The fourth, which is, so far as is known,
a new species, was of a small animal, with tho
nasal bones together. There was a great deal of
incidental material at this place, and ten days
were spent there in interesting work. The species
of rhinoceros found is not a large one, but the ani
mals were evidently about the size of a yearling
calf, but shorter and, fatter than th calt The.
animal must also have weighed more It is dis
tinctly of the upland type of the rhhinoceros and
probably lived on grass and such food. It had
much longer legs than the lowlandrhlnoceros.
In this same neighborhood there were found
large numbera of the so-called "devil's . cork
screws," which resemble nothing more than large
boles in the ground, which seem to have been
made by large corkscrews, as there are spirals on
the sides of the holo, running down to the oottom,
which in many cases is as much as six feet from
the surface of the ground. It has been claimed
by some that these formations were made by
plants, which grew In this manner, but the mem
bers of the Amherst expedition have decided that
they were made by a species of rodents, some of
which were very small, smaller than a mouse in
many cases. Later other finds were made which
bore out this theory.
A New Species of Horse
At this time a two-days' side trip was made,
which was extremely profitable. The finds, which
were made on the ranch of a Mr. Betcber, who
lived comparatively nearby, consisted of the re
mains of a "new" horse, which it is thought fills
in the gap between the upper allgocene period and
the middle mlocene, and in addition to the one
whole horse uncovered another fragmentary jaw
was found. This horse is one of a species which
had three toes, and there is but one other speci
men, it is thought. The horse was about the size
of a well known Virginia deer, and very slender
for a horse. It was also very light in weight The
Jaw of the animal was not nearly bo deep as in
the modern horse, aad the teeth were about a half
inch deep. Instead of about three inches, as in
the modern horse. When the crown wore off,
therefore, this horse had no more teeth to depend
upon, and It is probable that the life of the animal
was about five years in length. There were no
dees pits of cement in the teeth, and the cement
pits were then Just beginning. The front tooth
of a modern horse also has a mark on it, while
the tooth of the horse found did not. The horse
was evidently shortlived, therefore. This skeleton
of the horse was taken out in a block of sand
stone, and beyond the skull, and some of the
skeleton, including the pelvis and some of the
limb bones, little has yet been decided about it.
Indian Flint Diggings
From there the party was guided by Harold
Cook, the son of James Cook, who had helped
the party before, to the Indian flint diggings, fa
miliarly known in the vicinity as "Spanish, dig
gings." There is no connection with the Spanish,
however, but years ago there was a story that
these diggings were the remains of Spanish gold
mines, and some misguided people have even dug
in them for the yellow, metal. These dlgglns aro
twenty-five miles west of Spring butte, and duo
west of Mr. Black's ranch, whose place is the post-,
office at Willow, Wyo. The spring at which the,'
party pitched its camp is at the bead of Spanish
creek and several of the diggings are at that point
The diggings are two miles east of the Muddy
river, on the south border of Converse county,
Wyo. After camp was made the members of tho
party located several small springs and several ot
the diggings, each of which was at a spring and
the scene of an ancient encampment ot the people
who made the diggings. That the diggings aro
ancient there is no doubt, tor the formation in
which the diggings were made in the native flint
and the loose stones left are now all covered with
lichens, which indicates a very long weathering
process. The flint is very hard aad it takes a lot
of weathering tor it to soften to such an extent
that the lichens can get a hold and make any,
headway.
Strange Ceremonial Emblem
The ground in this whole area is covered to
depth of from one to three feet with flints. Ot
three diggings at this place that at tho central
spring is the oldest, judging from the lichens and
other Indications. In these diggings there is ab
solutely no tract of contact with the modern In
dian, and the diggings are at least 200 years old,
for it takes a long time to product lichens. on
flint The largest of the three quarries is about
one andva half acres in area, and at the base ot
the elope on which It 1b there is a strange forma
tion, the significance of which has not yet been
ascertained. It is evidently a ceremonial emblem
of some kind. It consists of the outline, made of
small rocks, of a huge man, with a topknot on his
head. The slope from his bead to the point where
his feet once were Is very gentle. His body runs
almost due north and south, with the head to tho
south and the feet to the north. The body of tho
figure is fifty-four feet long and twelve feet wide,
while the whole figure as It now is measures
eighty-four feet. The neck is three feet long and
the head is six feet across and eight feet high.
The topknot is four feet high. The arm measures
to the elbow six feet and fronf the elbow to tho
hand Is nine feet. The legs have been out off by
the action of a small stream, which has been
formed long ago, but srnce the building ot tho
figure, and it la impossible to tell how long tho
legs were originally. Springfield (Mass.) Republican.