“What brings you down to this part of the world?” I imagined the large, sharp, dark eyed building at 621 South 15th Street questioning me. Tracing patterns in the sidewalk with my shoe, I would feign confidence and blurt out, “I needed an up close and personal look.” For this curious corner at 15th and Jones and all corners within walking distance have been a strange attraction for longer than I can remember. Every wanderer knows that these southern blocks are the hidden gems of Downtown Omaha. Go have a look and see for yourself. I hope it never ceases in being perfectly odd.

 

From a series originally posted to Facebook only in June of 2018. Mother of Miss Cassette called these the Little Stories and she quite liked how short and fun they were. I will be working to get these uploaded onto the website, as most people don’t follow My Omaha Obsession on FB. 621 South 15th Street, seen above with the Skinners Macaroni building off to the right, in the distance at 1323 Jackson Street.

 

 

 

It would appear that before apartments were reconfigured within the ghost-signed Bekins Moving and Storage building, some mighty fine but precarious homes teetered atop a high bank of dirt. The ungraded tufts of the Woolly Midwest, almost as if scooped away by city planning, inch by inch, still sat untamed. Why did the homes’ wobbly dark stairs and porches meander and tilt above the street just so? Like a Popeye village movie set. Some of the photos in the series feature a dog or two standing on those porches in a casual manner, as if nothing was out of the ordinary. I busily scanned the windows and paths in the photographs to find a child hiding or an old woman gazing from behind a weathered curtain into the lens. No one, except for a man on a roof.

 

 

 

 

These south-facing homes, on the northeast corner of 15th and Jones, some of the last remnants of the 1800s, would be torn down in 1915, shortly after this photo was taken, to make way for the Western Newspaper Union building. All of the early Omaha writing called this a Dirty Town. I guess I can finally see it for myself. To the right in the background one can spot the Skinner Macaroni building, still located at 1323 Jackson. The Skinner building was supposedly built just one year prior to this photo. George Joslyn was the manager of the Western Newspaper Union in those days and some say the Joslyns would hire John and Alan McDonald to design the 621 South 15th Street building in 1916 but other sources claim it was built by 1915. Bekins Van Line would take over the site, at least by the 1970s and paint those great big yellow letters across the red-bricked Italian Renaissance decorative details, broadcasting a contemporary brazen attitude. By 1999 the building once filled with first-class Linotype machine men and the occasional hard-nosed lady machine operator would soon house upscale downtown lofts.

 

I previously mentioned the early writing of how truly dirty Omaha once was. One of my favorite quotes about Omaha from the Federal Writers’ Project: “The city fairly pulsates with its trade and its industries. It shoulders its way rudely ahead, it reaches its fingers out along the muddy river and pushes itself back over the prairie farmlands to the west. Of its ugliness and dirt, the smell of its stockyards, the soot from its factory chimneys, Omaha feels no shame. Like the grimy face and hands of an honest-toiling laborer, these qualities but add to its greatness.”

 

 

 

 

1915. 15th Street, facing north. The shantytown homes, balanced ever so precariously atop a mound of dirt. The home addresses painted on little signs are hammered to the railing. The modern city looming to the north.

 

 

 

 

1915. Jones Street view, facing east. The newly built Skinner Macaroni building behind. A man stares on as two men work on a roof. The house, although small, has some wonderful late 1800 elaborations. Are the men removing the roof for salvage? The couple next door is throwing their furniture out on their lawn. Demolition day is coming.

 

 

 

Magnified. Bostwick, Louis (1868-1943) and Frohardt, Homer (1885-1972). The Durham Museum. 1915. 

 

 

1915. A detail of the ungraded mound on east facing 15 Street. Such personality. The McCord-Brady Company building is seen in the distance as is a horse and carriage. All I can think is, if this mound had been in my Benson neighborhood as a child, we would have made great use of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Western Newspaper Union Building

 

In February 1915, George A. Joslyn, president of the Western Newspaper Union and Western Paper Co., was negotiating a sublease for a proposed building to be constructed at 9th and Howard. The structure was designed to be six stories tall. However, a month later, Mr. Joslyn began to reconsider the construction of the $75,000 facility. He continued to question the construction site. Joslyn would then settle at the southeast corner of 14th and Howard. The Homan family sold to E. A. Thayer of Denver, who sold to Mr. Joslyn. Subsequent to that buy, he altered his decision once again, obtaining the northeast corner of 15th and Jones. The property had belonged to the estate of the late Judge Charles Powell. This transaction occurred in April 1915.

 

The Western Newspaper Union was founded in 1880. The Union was home of “hundreds of auxiliaries to the publishers of newspapers all over the state of Nebraska.” These “ready prints” were disseminated to twenty-one million people, containing general, state, and national information in both national and local newspapers. I was uncertain of how they functioned–possibly as inserts, I wondered? It turns out these were nationally known as “patent insides.” The patent insides were preprinted newspaper pages marketed to publishers, offering content at little expense, approximately equivalent to the cost of blank paper alone. In 1894, the trade journal Printers’ Ink estimated that over 7,000 weekly newspapers in the United States depended on patent insides manufactured by only five businesses. George Josyln’s Western Newspaper Union, the largest of them, served almost 14,000 clients (newspapers) in the mid-1920s.

 

 

 

The Partridge and Thompson company took down the shanties and began their excavation in preparation for the new Western Newspaper Union building. Houses on the northeast corner of 15th and Jones Street where the new building will be built. Note the ungraded high bank of dirt next to the houses. To the right in the background you can see the Skinner Macaroni building at 14th and Jackson Street. Bostwick, Louis (1868-1943) and Frohardt, Homer (1885-1972). The Durham Museum. 1915. 

 

 

 

 

Omaha Daily News. September 1915.

 

December 1915. Omaha World-Herald.

 

March 1916. Omaha World-Herald. As it turns out, this headline was not an exaggeration.

Upon completion in 1916, the new Western Newspaper Union building was considered “one of the best constructed buildings in the city.” The cost was roughly $175,000, and its “brown facing brick” garnered considerable acclaim in the area.

 

The newspapers made clear the new Western Newspaper Union building was the pride of the town. I was pleased to find the photo below which illuminated the area even more. Do you see what is peeking out from behind?

 

The new building at 621 South 15th Street on the northeast corner of 15th and Jones Street. Bostwick, Louis (1868-1943) and Frohardt, Homer (1885-1972). The Durham Museum. January 1916.

 

 

 

 

There they are. The shanties persisted. The sign read: “For Sale McCague Inv. Co.” This made me smile. I could find them still standing in a photo taken seven months later.

 

 

 

By 1929, the little homes and ungraded clumps were cleared away. Bostwick, Louis (1868-1943) and Frohardt, Homer (1885-1972). The Durham Museum. 1929.

 

 

 

 

The Western Newspaper Union dispatched its final ready prints order in 1952. The Western Paper Co, Joslyn’s sister company, was absorbed by the Hammermill Paper Company. In November of 1969, the once great Western Newspaper Union building at 621 South 15^th Street was up for sale.

 

 

 

 

The Bekins Van & Storage Company would later assume control of the building. In 1998, a proposal was made to transform the 621 South 15th Street structure into 29 apartments, designated as the Joslyn Lofts. The restoration, funded by TIF money from the city, was anticipated to cost $3.66 million. Since 1999/2000 the Joslyns’ Western Newspaper Union building has been residential.

 

 

 

Joslyn Lofts entrance. Photo borrowed from an apartment rental site.

 

I welcome your feedback and comments on this wonderful part of Downtown Omaha. Please share your additional clues to the story in the “Comments,” as we know more together. Everyone would love to read what you have to say and it makes the sharing of Omaha history more fun. I want to hear from you.  You can keep up with my latest investigations by joining my email group. Click on “Contact” then look for “Sign me up for the Newsletter!” Enter your email address. You will get sent email updates every time I have written a new article. Also feel free to join My Omaha Obsession on Facebook. Thank you, Omaha friends. Miss Cassette

 

 

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