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 1889-1922. The district was designated an
Omaha Landmark in 1983.
History
George Bemis
George Pickering Bemis (March 15, 1838 – December 11, 1916) worked for nearly two decades as private secretary to his wealthy cousin, George Francis Train. He also acted as a real estate, loan and collection agent, and was later elected to o ...
'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
A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...
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 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.
[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
Period photosof Bemis Park from the 1913 tornado.
References
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Neighborhoods in Omaha, Nebraska
History of North Omaha, Nebraska
Historic districts in Omaha, Nebraska
Parks in Omaha, Nebraska
Populated places established in 1889