The Douglas House was the second

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...

. Located in present-day

Downtown Omaha Downtown Omaha is the central business, government and social core of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area, U.S. state of Nebraska. The boundaries are Omaha's 20th Street on the west to the Missouri River on the east and the centerline ...

on the southwest corner of 13th and Harney Streets, the hotel housed influential politicians, speculators, and the first court trial in the

Nebraska Territory The Territory of Nebraska was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 30, 1854, until March 1, 1867, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Nebraska. The Nebrask ...

. A two-story frame structure, it supplemented the earlier St. Nicholas Hotel.

History

Built in the fall of 1854 by David Lindley, the building used wood-frame construction and was reported to be primitive in accommodations and "completely inadequate as sleeping comfort and the necessities of life were concerned." For several years the dining room had no floor and tables were made of rough cut cottonwood boards supported by poles driven into the ground, with beds made of

bed sheet A bed sheet is a rectangular piece of cloth used either singly or in a pair as bedding, which is larger in length and width than a mattress, and which is placed immediately above a mattress or bed, but below blankets and other bedding (such a ...

s stuffed with prairie grass. The hotel became the city's first post office in 1855, only to be usurped by a new

dry goods Dry goods is a historic term describing the type of product line a store carries, which differs by region. The term comes from the textile trade, and the shops appear to have spread with the mercantile trade across the British Empire (and forme ...

store called the Big Six."Douglas County"
''Andreas' History of Nebraska.'' Retrieved 3/30/08. On July 4, 1855, Omaha's first ball was held at the Douglas House, along with a barbecue to celebrate the first anniversary of the city's founding. Efforts to enfranchise the women of Nebraska date to as early as 1855 when

suffragist Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...

Amelia Bloomer Amelia Jenks Bloomer (May 27, 1818 – December 30, 1894) was an American newspaper editor, women's rights and temperance advocate. Even though she did not create the women's clothing reform style known as bloomers, her name became associat ...

spoke before an audience at the Douglas House. Local missionaries were invited to hold services at the House in 1856, after the original Nebraska Territory state house was sold. The churches included

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

s, Congregationalists, Baptists and Episcopalians. In 1861 the hotel housed six patients during a

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

outbreak. The building still stood in 1883.Sala, G.A. (1883) ''America Revisited.'' London: Vizetelly. p 158.

References

{{Pioneer Omaha Hotel buildings completed in 1854 Demolished hotels in Omaha, Nebraska Pioneer history of Omaha, Nebraska Hotels established in 1854 1854 establishments in Nebraska Territory

History

See also

References