The Douglas County Courthouse is located at 1701 Farnam Street in

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's List of United S ...

, United States. Built in 1912, it was added to 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 ...

in 1979. Notable events at the courthouse include two lynchings and the city's first

sit-in A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. The protestors gather conspicuously in a space or building, refusing to mo ...

during the Civil Rights Movement. Five years after it was opened, the building was almost destroyed by

mob violence A riot or mob violence is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people. Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The p ...

in the

Omaha Race Riot of 1919 The Omaha Race Riot occurred in Omaha, Nebraska, September 28–29, 1919. The race riot resulted in the lynching of Will Brown, a black civilian; the death of two white rioters; the injuries of many Omaha Police Department officers and civili ...

. The 1912 building was designed in the French Renaissance Revival style by local architect John Latenser, Sr. Decorative stonework covers the structure's exterior, and the building serves as a prominent landmark in

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, Nebraska, Omaha's 20th Street on the west to the Missouri River on the east ...

History

First courthouse

Three years after the city was founded in 1854, on March 18, 1857 the

City of Omaha Omaha ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 41st-most-populous city, Omaha had a popul ...

built a

jail A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where people are imprisoned under the authority of the state, usually as punishment for various cr ...

and

courthouse A courthouse or court house is a structure which houses judicial functions for a governmental entity such as a state, region, province, county, prefecture, regency, or similar governmental unit. A courthouse is home to one or more courtrooms, ...

in an area known as Washington Square. It bounded by 15th, 16th, Douglas and Farnam streets. The original courthouse in Douglas County, with a council room and mayor's court room, several offices and jail cells, was opened January 4, 1858.

Second courthouse

The original building was found to be too small as early as 1869. The current site, a block between 17th, 18th, Farnam and Harney Streets, became available in 1878, and in 1879, a jail was built on the southwest corner of this lot. A completely new courthouse was opened on May 28, 1885. A 112 x -wide building, outer walls were covered with

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

and the inner walls were

brick A brick is a type of construction material used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a unit primarily composed of clay. But is now also used informally to denote building un ...

. The dome was

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

and

sheet metal Sheet metal is metal formed into thin, flat pieces, usually by an industrial process. Thicknesses can vary significantly; extremely thin sheets are considered foil (metal), foil or Metal leaf, leaf, and pieces thicker than 6 mm (0.25 ...

that was sanded and painted to resemble stone, and was crowned by a statue of

Justice In its broadest sense, justice is the idea that individuals should be treated fairly. According to the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', the most plausible candidate for a core definition comes from the ''Institutes (Justinian), Inst ...

Yule Marble Yule Marble is a marble of metamorphosed Leadville Limestone found only in the Yule Creek Valley, in the West Elk Mountains of Colorado, southeast of the town of Marble, Colorado.Marble Quadrangle, Colorado; USGS 7.5-minute series topogr ...

tiled hallways and elaborate

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...

staircases went throughout the building. The

lynching Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of i ...

Joe Coe Joe Coe, also known as George Smith, was an African-American laborer who was lynched on October 10, 1891, in Omaha, Nebraska. Overwhelmed by a mob of one thousand at the Douglas County Courthouse, the twelve city police officers stood by withou ...

occurred outside the Courthouse in 1891. Angered because of believing that a young girl had died after being attacked by him (the girl had not died, and the allegation was never proven), hundreds of men had overwhelmed the small police force. They dragged Coe from his cell and hanged him from streetcar cables at the corner of 17th and Harney. When the new courthouse was built, the old building was torn down and recycled. Materials from the old courthouse building were used in the construction of the Lancaster Apartments at 25th Avenue and Marcy Street. The dark stone on the lower two stories and the white pillars at each of the main entrances were from the courthouse, as well as possibly some of the stones in the courtyard wall along the alley.

Present courthouse

John Latenser, a locally important architect, was hired to design a replacement building in 1908. It opened October 1, 1912. Built south of the old courthouse, the new building is six stories tall along Harney Street and five stories along Farnam. While the exterior walls are covered with unembellished Bedford stone, the interior halls have mosaic floors and marble wainscotings. Hardwood covers the interior of most offices, and vaults preserve county records. There were county offices on the main floor, second and third floors, and

courtroom A courtroom is the enclosed space in which courts of law are held in front of a judge. A number of courtrooms, which may also be known as "courts", may be housed in a courthouse. In recent years, courtrooms have been equipped with audiovisual ...

s on the fourth floor. The Douglas County Jail was on the fifth floor.

1919 Riots

In September 1919, following

Red Summer The Red Summer was a period in mid-1919 during which Terrorism in the United States#White nationalism and white supremacy, white supremacist terrorism and Mass racial violence in the United States, racial riots occurred in more than three d ...

and

race riots This is a list of ethnic riots by country, and includes riots based on ethnic, sectarian, xenophobic, and racial conflict. Some of these riots can also be classified as pogroms. Africa Americas United States Nativist period: 1700s� ...

in numerous industrial cities, a mob of thousands of white men from South Omaha surrounded and attacked the Courthouse seeking to

lynch Lynch may refer to: Places Australia * Lynch Island, South Orkney Islands, Antarctica * Lynch Point, Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica * Lynch's Crater, Queensland, Australia England * River Lynch, Hertfordshire * The Lynch, an island in the Rive ...

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

worker named Willy Brown (accused of assaulting a white woman). Young white men broke windows and climbed the outside of the building. After a few hours, thousands more gathered and they set the courthouse on fire to force the police to hand over the suspect. After lynching Brown and the city's mayor, Edward Parsons Smith—who was rescued at the last minute—the mob swarmed toward the city's black quarter. They were stopped by federal troops from

Fort Omaha Fort Omaha, originally known as Sherman Barracks and then Omaha Barracks, is an Indian War-era United States Army supply installation. Located at 5730 North 30th Street, with the entrance at North 30th and Fort Streets in modern-day North Oma ...

, who had been called in to restore order in the city. The military commander posted troops in South Omaha to prevent other mobs from forming.

Sit-ins

In 1948, Rev. John P. Markoe, S.J., led an early civil rights effort with an interracial group of about 30 people from Creighton University to hold the city's first

at old Dixon's Cafe next to the courthouse. When the group arrived, the owner told them that white customers would stop coming into the restaurant if blacks were served. In response, the members stayed until the owner agreed to allow

patrons.Graves, S. (2004
"Black history strong at Creighton"
, ''The Creightonian Online'', Creighton University, 83(18).

References

{{NRHP Omaha Government buildings completed in 1912 County courthouses in Nebraska Buildings and structures in Omaha, Nebraska National Register of Historic Places in Omaha, Nebraska John Latenser Sr. buildings Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Nebraska 1912 establishments in Nebraska