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1 r.,v- 'B.-. UiV. I '-V . ff. ) ?f.v South Omaha Area.
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OFZOASDJVBTST.SYSXCM -AT 27&AVE.A3n CZINTOir ST. ' ' 4j..ffeJfT vJ-rTtyAa t' j
III. -V ' V,5 '!M U
HREE MILLION
numbers, represents the cost of the sew
ers of Omaha. The length of the sew
ers, mains and branches is 189 miles.
They vary in site from the great malnfs
fcxl6 feet, inside measurement, ellipUcfc.1
In form, to the six and eight-inch pipes
almost thirty years ago the old Waring
put in
system. .
During the year Just ending the cost of new sew
ers has approximated 1160.000. For the cdmingrvear
the engineer's department is planning these exten
sions: Miller park outlet, $60,000; extension of Thirtieth
mnd Fort street system to Fortieth, $55,000; comple
tion of Tventyeventh and Sprague streets branch,
between Lake street and Bedford BTenne, $25,000;
reconstruction of west branch North Omaha system
to Thirty-third and Cass, $35,000; reconstruction of
southwest branch South Omaha system from Twen
tieth and Wool worth to Twenty-sixth and Creighton
avenue, west on Creighton to Twenty-ninth sreet, and
northwest to Thirty-first and Wool worth avenues,
$65,000. Minor extensions in other localities,
$10,000.
Another improvement that ought to be made, but
not yet very definiely determined on, would com
pletely care for the storm water in the district from
California to Leavenworth. This construction, if car
ried out, would cost from $65,000 to $70,000.
One of the many difficulties of new sewer con
struction in certain districts will be noted in one of
the illustrations. Here a very large new sewer is
being constructed which runs under the brick Cali
fornia street main. The first piece of very heavy un
derground work is now being done under Burt street,
where a l.SOO-foot tunnel is being built by Contractor
Jensen. An air lock is being utilized to keep out the
water and three shifts of men are boring day and
niglit. The bore will be of concrete and is being
built In six-foot sections.
Craig Talks of.Rosewater's Work,
City Engineer Crsig gives a very interesting ac
count of how the Waring system, which proved totally
Inadequate a short time after installation, came to be
installed.
"la those days Andrew Hosewater was a young
man, whose reputation vu local." said Mr. Craig.
"He fought in vain against the adoption of the War
ing system, holding that it would not suit conditions
in Omaha. But Colonel Waring was a man of na
tional reputation, and this fact brought such strong
support to his plans here in Omaha that the Ideas of
Mr. Rosewater were not adopted. It required bat a
few years to vindicate Ronewater's position, and toflay
the last vestige of the Waring nystem has almost dis
appeared. It was knowledge and foresight 6uch as he
exhibited in this instance that gave Andrew Rosvwater
as international reputation as an expert engineer.
"It is due to the memory and reputation of Mr.
Rosewater to say. too, that bis work and plans, devel
oped several years ago and latfr put icto effect, have
provided Omaha with data and en corn pass a system
swoon d to none in the country. The storm waters
and the ordinary sewage of a large city are nowhere
better taken care of."
Old Drains Inadequate.
This city ha seven main sewer outlets Thirtieth
and Fort, Ixard street, new North Omaha, Chicago
street. Jones street, Pierce street and Rnervlew park.
All of them empty into the rier. The Saddle Creek
district was the bis project, perhaps, in extent of ter
ritory taken in. Its drainage area comprises the land
from the upper end of the ater shed, about Forty
seventh and Military avenue, to California and Forty
sl:.th. From the latter ioiut the sanitary sewage
passed into a septic tank at Forty-sixth and Dewey,
while the storm water goes down the old creek bed.
The Thirtieth and Fort streets sewer drains the
entire couutry from the School for the Deaf and as far
north as Grand avenue,
second street.
and west as far as Fifty-
The North Omaha system has three principal
branches. Its north arm drtdns the territory betmecn
Sherman avenue on the east and Thirty-third street
on the extreme west; its extreme north limit is Pnttt
street, and it bandies drainage south as far as Cum
ing. The west branch extends to Fortieth street on
the west, goes as far north as Indiana and extends
south tr Jackson. The south branch extends to Pa
cific, west to Thirty-seventh and east to Twenty-sixth.
The rebuilding cf the wett branch of this system
takes in the new Burt street n.aln. which is now being
bored through the high ground from Twenty-second
street to Tsenty-ffth avenue, and will extend from
- - - - - - . . . ... . . . v . a o
Hundred Miles of Sewers in Omaha's System
DOLLARS, in round Fifteenth to Twntv-mth trr. v. ...... I? ' Sir?;- -tC. 11
. ...... iVmi Jl IB II I I t I j ' YSS- H 1 -r
hoped to B-nd this extension went to Tbirty-rhird WjwJlht V 'CV9 -'"t" I
and thu. relieve the Bemi. park district and surround- 17 b J " ZV ; I'S 1
ing territory. M W1 " r V)V 'i . . 3
Where the Sewers Run.
In this connection it may be said the engineers
have found that the old sewers in the thickly settled
parts of the city are inadequate to take care of the
flow from the newer sewers west and north, and City
Engineer Craig and the engineer directly in charge
of sewers, John A. Bruce, point out that the blockTag
of Andrew Rosewater's plans in the old dsys by coun
cils and boards of public works, together with a total
inadequacy of funds waa responsible for a condition
of affairs that could easily have been avoided if the
advice of the expert engineer had been taken.
Two main sewer layouts converge at Twenty
seventh street and Ellison avenue and from Twenty-
Story of the Potato and Its Record of Usefulness
EBRABKA potato growers produce some
thing over $6,000,000 worth each year,
and shipments of our tubers are made
to all parts of the country. The acre
age and production are increasing every
year in this state, and therefore any
N
thing concerning this important crop is
of interest hereabouts. Writing in the St. Louis
Globe-Democrat, Vernon Murray gives some timely
consideration to the potato, called forth by the recent
decision of the wise men of France to let the good,
honest American potato into their banquet halls after
nearly forty years of exclusion. It is a curious coin
cidence in the history of this apple of the earth, as
the Frenchman called it, that it figured on the same
great stage that Louis XVI made famous and in a
measure shared its rise and fall with him. In the
beginning of his reign the potato was deemed a rank
poison by Frenchmen generally. Its one friend was the
famous Parmentier, who cultivated it under difficul
ties till Louis XVI became convinced of its worth and
granted Parmentier lands and protection for his po
tato plants. At once the despised vegetable lesped
to glory along the path of its royal patron. The po
tato flower was worn in the buttonhole of the mon
arch snd the all-potato banquet became the climax of
the French chef's art andan event in the history of
this most eventful period.
It was the day of the great Lavoisier, whose
achievements in the world of science and irterest in
agricultural chemistry gave him more than national
fame and authority. To win him to his cause Par
mentier gsve in his honor a great feast in Paris,
w here every dish was made of potatoes, and even the
brandy and liquors produced from them.
Many of the distinguished men of the day gath
ered at this banquet, which was deemed one of the
most remarkable in history, and the glory of the po
tato reached its climax. But, alas for the vanity of
earthly honors from potato fields to thrones. The
king lost his head and the potato its valuable eyes,
which were no longer planted two in a row as enter
prisingly as the horticulturists recommended in the
high noon of its favor. Nevertheless, a vegetable
with eyes wss not to be despised, especially when
capable of repeating itself in some COO or more
species through the use of them. It came' out from
its eclipse in France, as elsewhere, and by good breed
Origin of that Slangy But Useful Term "Dope"
HERE is probably not one man in 10,000
who lets the word "dope" fall so trip
pingly from his lips who knows the or
igin of that slangy but useful term, says
the New York Times. Though orig
inally applied only to the drug of the
T
opium-smoking fiends, whereby wild
imaginiugs born in the clouded brain were taken by
the victim as true, by almost universal usage it has
come to mean the essential factor or material cause
of scything done or said the influencing or moving
cause that enables one to achieve success in his efforts,
to "srrive," as the French put It.
"What's your dope on that story?" mUs the city edi
tor of tha reporter. Just in from an assignment, mean
ing to ask. in gettsel English, what are the live facts
discovered, the meat of the article that is to be.
"Whtt dope did jou use on the court?" asks ou
serenth and Clinton run through Miller park in an
open ditch. It is hoped to rectify this condition the
coming year and have a covered sewer through the
park.
The sewer known as the Twenty-seventh and
Sprague streets branch drains th country from Ham
ilton street on the south to Military avenue and Forty-
ing began to recommend itself to royal horticultural
societies and men of science and learning of all lands.
Even before its fluctuating fortunes in France it fig
ured in the history of nations and was born across
seas and continents by scholars and explorers who
gave it an honorable place in classic literature as well
as foreign soil.
In various Spanish books of the sixteenth century
the introduction of potatoes to the Spaniards by voy
agers from Peru receives elaborate notice. Humboldt
describes their place in the New World at it earliest
discovery. Sir Waltep Raleigh honored the North
Carolina and Virginia potato tubers not only by his
toric notes, but by cultivation on his estate near Cork.
Gerard, in the first edition of the Herbal." not only
gave the potato riant and flower the distinction of a
frontispiece, but of glowing paragraphs wherein he
described it as "a foode, as also a meate for pleasure,
equal in goodness and wholesomenesse unto the same,
being either roasted in the embers or boiled and eaten
with oile, vinegar and pepper, or dressed any other
way by the band of some cunning in tookerie."
The patriotic defender of home products is quite i
right when he asserts that "the American potato per
mits of no comparison, whether boiled, baked, fried,
scalloped, chipped, mashed or served with its Jacket
on." Parmentier's secret of converting it Into brandy
and liquor is all that is needed to make it grander in
the land than the Bhesf of Joseph, to which all the
others did obeiBance. There are indications, too, that
in some of those dry regions w here orange rinds serve
as whisky Jugs, and bulldogs eat reporters, a great
necessity, which is the mother of invention, will wrest
the liquor Juice from the bosom of the potato, and no
French chef surpass the Ingenuity of the thirsty
American in securing the "gifts the gods provide."
No offense need be taken from this suggestion, either,
by the temperance societies, since there must be some
sparkling and stimulating cup that cheers but not in
ebriates, hidden in the bosom of Nature somewhere,
to meet that life principle, impulse, or w hatever it is.
that raises a thri&t for it in human breasts.
Old World scientists tell us that they are already
at work upon a whisky which will exhilarate, but not
intoxicate, and it may be that Parmentier's secret will
soon be out and the potato crown the discovery. It is
significant that with all the gay carousing over that
poato brandy and "liqueur" at the "greatest feast of
lawyer of a "hrotber-in-law" who has just had a de
cision rendered in his favor by the court, metnlug
thereby to ask what cogent argument, or subtle influ
ence brought about the favorable opinion.
"The word, while not of Chinese origin, originated
among the Chinese cf San Francisco," said an old
resident of the Pacific rostl. "Years ago. when that
city was full of opium-siuoking joins, run by orient
als from China, they were largely patronired by many
of the depraved white men of the town. Now Chinese
is a monosyllable language, there being no word in it
with more than one syllable. Accordingly, when the
Chinese learns, or mther partially learns, Eug
lish. he is prone to pick and use the most prominent
syllable in a word, disposing of the rest by a ej re
breathlLg or grunt.
"When a white man would enter one of the San
Francisco opium joints the Chine, proprietor would
coem forward and ask affably: You want ope?1 the
fifth street on the extreme west, and east to Thirty
third street. This system is now complete except for
a gap of three-quarters of a mile between Lake street
and Bedford avenue, where the sewer is now but an
open channel. In this part of town is the section of
sewer largest in dimension, extending from Twenty
seventh and Ames to Thirty-first and Pinkney streets.
the nation Lawoisier, the prime guest, was not found
under the table, nor were any of his distinguished
friends helped home by the gendarmes. To drink
with an air that, like Lamb's furious and incessant
smoking, could "command the respect of his friends"
would certainly be a consummation devoutly to be
wished by any well-developed drinker, and Ingersoll's
famous whisky letter to his friend, Walston H. Brown,
shows what poetic possibilities lurk in the brain of
the wise drinker. It may be that it would not be so
easy to find "the breath of June and the carol of the
lark, the sunshine and the shadow chasing each other
over billowy fields" in the potato beverage, but if it
"did its appointed work some glorification out of the
dews of night and the teeming bosom of earth would
no doubt attend it.
It would certainly be well, says Mr. Murrsy, for
the potato to have its eyes opened to all the virtues
within it, even if unvirtuous mortals were inclined to
abuse its rich girts as they have the liquid Joy in the
staves of oak or the luscious Juice in the hesrt of the
grape. Over both of these, however, the potato holds
the record of "a merry, drinking, laughing, quaffing
time," which showed no death in the cup nor a single
drop of poison to "steal away man's brains."
Whatever the new developments in name or fame
that may await this modest vegetable of the garden,
it is sore than probable that no potato brandy will
ever move such effort as Casslus made at nomencla
ture, when he cried out in anguish at his overthrow,
"O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name
to be known by let vs call thee devil!"
One of the most circumspect newspapers of the
land declares that w hatever may have been the matter
with the American potato in 1&75, when France re
jected it, there is nothing the matter with it now.
That certainly tallies with the tremendous figures
which show the increase in the production and the de
mands made ujon It for home consumption by people
not given to feeding on poison when they know them
selves. Putting all things together, it might be well
for Americans to keep their potatoes on their own
soil; at any rate, until they are well assured that there
is not a hungry child left in their borders to pray in
vain, "Give us this day our daily tatos," for that
truly is the kind of vegetable tragedy no country can
afford..
word 'oj-e' being the Chinese pronunciation of the
English word 'opium,' formed by emphasizing the first
syllable and letting the rest of the word go by the
board. This, owing to the liquid running together of
the two words 'want' and 'opium, was understood by
the would-be opium smoker as 'dope.' Accordingly, the
little pill that brought the funny dreams was spoken
of among the Initiated as 'dope.' From this the transi
tion to the i&canii.g of the fsnciful Images conjured
by the drug was easy. 'What dope did you use to think
up that wild story?' became 'What dope are you giv
ing us?' '
"'You've got the doj all right.' perhaps is the
commonest form of expression, wherein the word is
used in the final sense, meaning, 'you sre right,'
whether in ideas or action.
"But it all harks back to the little pill the silk-clad
Chinese rolled for Lis victims over the litU lamp In
San Francisco years ago.
A twelve-and-a-half-foot sewer runs north froK
Twenty-seventh street and Ellison avenue to a point a
little north of Clinton street. These large drains
have a capacity of about 10.000 gallons per second.
The South Omaha system, with outlet' at Jones
snd Fourth streets, has three main branches. The
north branch drains the territory as far, west as
Twenty-sixth and Dodge streets and south to Leaven
worth; the southwest branch, built thirty years ago,
drains as far south as Twenty-seventh and Vinton
streets, and the area west to the water shed at Thirty
third, and drains a section east to Twenty-fourth,
The first continuation of the Jones street sewer was
built last year to Twentieth street and Woolworth
avenue, and connects with the system whose focal
point is Twenty-first street and Lincoln avenue. Next
year It is proposed to further extend this branch to
Creighton avenue. A connection must also be made
with the South Omaha system to properly drain the
territory between Thirty-third and Forty-second
streets, from about Pacific street to the south city
limits.
When the first sewers were built, about thirty,
years sgo, dsta on rainfall was very meager, and on
inch per hour was taken as an average. This was
based in certain pioneer experiments made in Brook
lyn. Later the average found safe to figure on was
raised to 2, inches an hour, which proved Andrew
Rosewater's original contention.
City Engineer Craig, who has been si most contin
ually engaged in the engineer's efflce from the days
of George Tillson, whp is now city engineer of New
York, has many interesting stories to tell of the de
velopment of the system, some of which are not with
out a touch of humor.
Tahles Turned On Contractor.
"I recall when I was practically a chain boy for
Engineer Tillson," said Mr. Craig. "We were meas
uring a piece of sewer work done by a man who is
now a very successful contractor. He asked to be
allowed to help by holding the tape half w ay between
Mr. Tillson and myself. It was dark, of course, but
the shadow cast by a lantern indicated the contractor
was lengthening the measurement by wrapping the
tape around his body. So when the measurements
were taken Mr. Tillson quietly inquired, 'How many
sections, George?' I told him eight. 'All right; Just
measure Mr. " girth and multiply it by eight.
No, make it nine for good measure, and deduct from
the total length.' The contractor saw the Joke was
on him and did not murmur.
"In those early days, too, we used to have diffi
culty getting Portland cement used where called for.
In concreting native cement was permitted, but, for
mortar we demanded the real Portland, which was
costly. One day Mr. Tillson and myself were out in
specting and we came to a suspicious place. Even
while we were arguing w ith the contractor we noticed
a laborer backing up to a mortar box with a heavy
load held close to bis front. He miscalculated tha
distance to the box, struck it with his heel and went
sprawling backward in the mortar; and there he lay
w ith a sack of native cement on top of him. It ahould,
have been Portland. That settled the argument.
Do Sewer Rats Think?
Of rats in the sewers Messrs. Craig and Bruce tell
enlightening stories. The largest trible of rodents
has its home in a "dead end" near the Young Women's
Christian association building, and from there tha
hungry members or pathfinders make their way to the
streets at various promising corners, gsining tha
street through the inlets.
"The wise rats have figured out a mode of travel
that indicates they do think," said Mr. Craig. "Say
the rat is bound for the inlet st the Bee building cor
ner; he will start on the west wsil of the sewer and
run until he is about to overbalance; then make a
spring to the east wall, and repeat this msneuver
until he lands at his objective point. If thst scheme
of running along a curving wall so as to svoid falling
in the water doesn't prove a rat can think, w hat does
it prove?"
Engineer Bruce will also point out to the inquirer
spots where a hundred men could hide in comparativa
comfort in the sewer drains of Omaha. Just as there
are many places where a team and w agon could easily
make their way. Bruce and other men' connected
with the sewer department can tell almost to within
a foot where any lost object will land after passing
through the drain pipes. Times are recalled where
reports of lost money or jewelry have been made and
the engineer's men have found and returned the lost
article. Some of the men who care for the sewers
have also found money, jewelry and other things that
no one had reported lost or ever claimed.
Design and construction of new sewers is in the
hands of John A. Bruce, under City Enginer Craig
and Assistant George Campen, The engineering on
sewers costs about $5,000 a year. The maintenance
and repair department, also under the engineer's con
trol, cost the last year $17,400. This department
builds inlets, or catch-basins; flushes, cleans and re
pairs the sewers, and the plan has been found to be
much cheaper than having tha small OLstructloa
work done by contract.