Homer's Travels: The Gritty Underbelly Of Omaha

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

The Gritty Underbelly Of Omaha

Tuesday, my Mom, the Wife, and I took the last of the four River City Tours of Omaha put on by the Durham museum. This tour was titled "the Gritty City" and covered the seedier side of Omaha history.

The bus tour took us around the downtown area, an area I have walked many times, while the guide told us about the saloons, brothels, and mobsters that livened up the history of this once frontier city. Things look differently once you learn the story behind the old buildings. Apparently a lot of the hotels, saloons, and gambling joints had tunnels connecting them to nearby brothels. Now a tunnel tour ... that's something I would like to see. Unfortunately, I doubt any of the tunnels still exist today.

The tour was pretty good but is was shorter than the other tours by almost forty-five minutes. If I were them, I would merge the Trans-Mississippi parts of the tour we took the "J" on with the Gritty City Tour. I would then flesh out the North Omaha/Jazz tour with more north Omaha history and African-American history. When they had talked about the African-Americans in Omaha, about 10 minutes of the two hour tour, not one peep about Malcolm X being born here and forced out of town with his family. If you believed the tour the African-American experience in Omaha was a little descrimination and a lot of good Jazz. Of course, if I ruled the world, everything would be perfect.

3 comments:

  1. How IS that whole global-domination project coming along, anyway?

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  2. GH: You just wait. Once I finish the blogger-based mind control widget I'll be having the last laugh. Ha!

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  3. I like your reflection about North Omaha. You might appreciate the writing I've been doing over the last few years at https://northomahahistory.com - its a collection of 150 articles about everything in North Omaha.

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