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The Prairie Capital
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1880-1930

foreword

THESE sketches of early conditions in the Prairie Capital were written at the instance of Mr. John E. Miller for the observance of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the beginning of his business career in Lincoln. Their purpose is not to offer a connected narrative nor to contribute to the already adequate data of local history. Their object is to suggest in outline some of the situations, conditions, events and institutions of the beginnings of the city and state; and especially to suggest that spirit of the youthful founders which has persisted with but slight impairment to the present tinme, a spirit which contributes so largely to the character and charm of the modern city.

EP Brown sig.


Retrospect
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   IT HAS not been a habit with Miller & Paine to indulge in "Anniversary" sales, but after fifty years we have concluded that it is justifiable and appropriate.

   At once we will explain that this is not actually the fiftieth anniversary of Miller & Paine but the fiftieth anniversary of the business career in Lincoln of the undersigned.

   It was in the spring of 1879 that I came to Lincoln at the suggestion of Captain J. W. Winger, by whom I had been employed some years previously in a country store in Pennsylvania. I entered his service as a salesman, and incidentally, as bookkeeper, janitor and porter. At first Mr. Winger and I did all of the work, but in a little while Sam Latta (Dr. Samuel E. Latta, now of Stockton, California) was added to our force and a little later Charley Rohman, who had just come from Illinois, was engaged. The store was on P street between Tenth and Eleventh streets. Its dimensions were about 22x6O feet with a wareroom for sugar and salt in an adjoining building. Our stock was confined to very staple groceries, dry goods, boots and shoes. As our sales were largely to farmers, we took in exchange

 

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Retrospect
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all of the butter and eggs they offered. The butter now would be graded medium to very poor, but it was as good as could be produced with the facilities, or rather the lack of facilities, available. At any rate, the people of the town accepted it as the best they could get.

   In the summer of 1880, as recently noted in The State Journal column of "Fifty Years Age," Mr. Winger erected a two-story brick building on the south side of O street just east of Eleventh, expecting to move his business thre. About the time the building was completed Mr. Henry Herpolsheimer offered to rent this building at $125 per month and as that was quite as much as Mr. Winger had expected to make in his business, he decided to let him have it and close out the business on P street. I at once made arrangements to enter the service of Mr. Herpolsheimer. However, closing out an old stock proved a difficult job, and then Mr. Winger proposed that we should continue the business as partners. I had very little money and much of the merchandise had very little value, but I thought it a great opportunity nevertheless. About two years later we moved to a larger room (or rooms) in the Griffith Building (in the corner of Tenth and P streets) where we remained until the summer of 1885.

   Those were the days of corduroys, Kentucky jeans and cottonades for men, heavy grey flannel or quilted petticoats for women and red medicated (?) flannels for men, women and children. By that

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time we were having considerable city (?) business, and hoop skirts, and bustles were popular items.

   Corn in those days not infrequently went below 20c a bushel. Freight rates from New York to Lincoln averaged less than half of the rates in effect during the past fifteen years with free tickets to and from Chicago thrown in.

   Raymond Brothers, wholesale grocers, were at that time located on the southeast corner of the intersecton of Eleventh and P and the residence of John R. Clark, one of the prominent bankers of the city, just back of them on P street. T. P. Quick did business on the square directly across P street and John Sheedy occupied the second floor of the Quick building. The Burlington land office was on the corner just across P street from Winger & Miller. The Atwood hotel was an the corner now occupied by the Journal building. The Journal was then located on the southwest corner of the intersection of Ninth and O streets. Louis Meyer's store was on the east side of the square and David May's clothing store, Turner's Drug store and Fred Schmidt's were all located on the south side.

   When I came to Lincoln John L. McConnell and J. & D. Newman were the lending dry goods stores and both were located on the south side of O street between Tenth and Eleventh streets. Doyle and Cheater, located on the east side of Eleventh between N and O atreets, were the sensational advertisers of that period, but lasted only a little while.

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   Dry goods stores came at the rate of one to three a year from that time on, but that of Mr. Herpolsheimer is the only one that survived.

   As I now recall, the only retail businesses in Lincoln fifty years ago that have continued to this date in the same family are Hardy's, Harley's, Hallet's and Herpolsheimer's. The only wholesalers that cover the same period are Raymond Brothers and Lau's.

   In the summer of 1885 Winger & Miller sold the store on P street to Meyers Nissley & Company and a few months later Miller & Paine, under the name of J. E. Miller, opened with a stock of dry goods and carpets in a three story building just erected by Mrs. McConnell on the comer of Tenth and N streets. Hardy's furniture store occupied the room on the corner and we were next door. After about three years there, and then a little longer time in the Latta (now Brownell) building on Eleventh street., we moved to our present location, or rather to a part of our present location. "Old timers" will remember that we succeeded "Fatty" Holtman who had occupied the Paine building and later the Fish Market on the Tucker corner. When we incorporated a few years after coming to O street, it was for the purpose of more directly interesting in the business some of our more important employees. Among these were Mr. Grant Watkins, Mr. E. H. Steckley, Miss Lucille Miller and Mr. George O. Smith.

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   For many years it has been our determined policy to give the people of Nebraska just as good a store as they would support, and we are now ready to leave it to others to say whether or not we have succeeded.

   From time to time there will appear in connection with our regular advertisements, short articles by a well-known gentleman who has spent all of his life in Nebraska. These articles will give a picture of the Lincoln of long ago that we are confident will he of interest not only to "old timers" but to those as well who are familiar with the Lincoln of today.

JE Miller sig.

 

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The Prairie Capital

1880     1930

First Long Pants

The First Long Pants

SEPTEMBER 1, 1880, the Prairie Capital called itself at last a City. It had been, indeed, from the very first officially a "city" and narrowly had escaped being named "Capital City." In the minds of its fiercely loyal citizens it long had been a "city". But at last on this day there was no room for doubt about it. Neither official designation nor local partiality need be invoked to declare its truly urban status. The census had been taken. The figures had been published. Lincoln, the Prairie Capital had a population of 13,003 souls. Like a

 

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boy with his first long pants, the town strutted just a little.

   Thirteen thousand and three--it was an eyeful and a mouthful. Where they had been found was known only to the supervisor of the count and that wise guy was too discreet to tell. An impartial observer (there was none, but just suppose) might have doubted whether all of the 13,003 had souls. But however reached and however classified the figures were official. The town was satisfied. The enumerator had done a good job. One nose counter had waited in the small hours of the morning until the stork had added one more soul to the town's total. That man overlooked no bets. His rival for popular approval was the colleague, who, hearing of on accident likely to result fatally to its victim, dropped everything to rush out and enroll one more soul before it was subtracted from the town's total. A citizen whose family had lately been enlarged by the addition of twins, generally was thought to have deserved well of the public. The town was content. After twelve years of bitter struggle it was at last a city.

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Shorts and Tuxedos

Shorts and Tuxedos

   THE Prairie Capital of fifty years ago called itself a city. By the standards of that time the claim was valid. By those of 1930 it would appear to lack some of the essentials of a city. What is lacked was at times conspictuous, as if a reveler should appear in shorts and a tuxedo.

   In the neighborhood of tenth and O streets a grouping of store buildings marked the heart of the city. Few were more than two stories. Many of them were of one story and some of these tried to mask their lowly stature by the false front of two stories, so characteristic of the towns of the region. Wooden sidewalks in the business district did not in many cases extend far beyond it. Streets, far too wide, were unpaved. In winter and spring they were deep in mud. In summer they were equally deep in

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dust. They were unpoliced. They were unlighted. The First National Bank maintained at times a light on the corner at Tenth and O, and was much commended by the paper for its enterprise.

   To the north the single building of the University bounded the city. To the south and east the Capitol closed the view. For the most part the town lay between and around these two. A long way out on D street and 17th the Chapins lived. Still further out at 26th and J, Guy Brown had his two roomed cottage. The houses of the city were mostly wood. They were all small and all unfenced. They were so widely spaced that traffic was not confined to the road, but went conveniently across lots. The family horse and the family cow were institutions. Not infrequently there was a pig. Every alley had its manure pile. The city's first garbage plant known as the "slop wagon" made infrequent rounds. Every back lot furnished proof that there were no sanitary sewers. Near by was the well. Sometimes the doctors were overworked.

   Houses had no central heating. Dwellings, stores, University and State House were heated by stoves. For the most part they were lighted by oil lamps though some of them had gas. There was no domestic plumbing. The family wash tub did double duty. On Saturday night it washed the family. On Monday morning it washed the family clothes. Pretense was impossible in view of the unabashed dis-

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closures of the wash line. Everything was there but the family skeleton.

   Down town a certain number of liquor saloons were public institutions. Only slightly more retired from public notice were certain allied establishments. Their location and their nature wre known to everybody. Everybody also knew where the gambling houses were. Nearly everyone had a dislike for the presence of these features of city life. But what could you do about it? Every city had them. Somehow your town wasn't a city unless it, too, had them.

   If the Prairie Capital in the elation of knowing that it possessed 13,003 souls strutted a little like a boy with his first long pants, it is also to be said that like that same boy it was a little careless about washing behind the ears.

 

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© 2000, 2001 for NEGenWeb Project, submitted by Kathie Harrison <NelliBlu28@aol.com>
"I'd like to dedicate this to the memory of the early people of Lincoln, Nebraska
in honor of my Grand Aunt Ellen Hogan Keane"