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, and developed from 1889 to 1922. The district was designated an
Omaha Landmark in 1983.
History
George Bemis's Bemis Land Company platted this exclusive subdivision in 1889. His namesake park was part of Omaha's parks and boulevard system, and 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,
Arts and Crafts
The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...
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 then 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 completely ruined. The pretty homes that adorned the graceful winding driveways were beyond redemption. The trees had been broken off short at the base, and many of them were even 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
Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company is an American Fortune 500 mutual insurance and financial services company based in Omaha, Nebraska. Founded in 1909 as Mutual Benefit Health & Accident Association, Mutual of Omaha is a financial organization o ...
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
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
.
[Mead & Hunt, Inc. (2003) . Prepared from the City of Omaha, Omaha City Planning Department, Omaha Certified Local Government, and Nebraska State Historical Society. Retrieved 5/29/07.]
Historic properties
See also
*
Neighborhoods of Omaha, Nebraska
*
History of Omaha
External links
"A History of the Bemis Park Landmark Heritage District"by Adam Fletcher Sasse for NorthOmahaHistory.com
Period photosof Bemis Park from the 1913 tornado.
References
{{coord, 41, 16, 12, N, 95, 58, 08, W, format=dms, display=title, type:city_region:US-NE
Neighborhoods in Omaha, Nebraska
History of North Omaha, Nebraska
Historic districts in Omaha, Nebraska
Parks in Omaha, Nebraska
Populated places established in 1889