North Omaha is old enough that there are some housing developments that have been wiped off the map. This article highlights the past of an area in North Omaha that simply stopped existing. It is a history of the Prairie Park neighborhood.
The Beginning of a Neighborhood
A lot of people don’t really think about the spaces we live in, recreate with, or drive through everyday. We don’t think about what was there before and what it meant to others before us. We also don’t think about the innovations or destructions wrought by the larger forces that affect others as well as ourselves. Instead, we just sleep, eat, play, work, commute, and otherwise live our lives.
These are images of homes in the Prairie Park neighborhood from a 1910 newspaper article, along with AI interpretations of those pics. I don’t know the exact locations, which were between N. 25th and N. 27th from Ames to Fowler. Do you recognize it?
At 24th and Ames, there was once a thriving commercial district packed with businesses for every need. Just six blocks away at 30th and Ames, there was a separate commercial district that did nearly the same thing. Both had grocery stores and bakeries, movie theaters and clothing stores. Pharmacies, jewelry stores, laundromats, fruit stands, bars and restaurants, and many other staples anchored these business centers. Surrounding them sat several idyllic originally suburban neighborhoods, including Collier Place, Saratoga, Bedford Place, Monmouth Park, and Prairie Park.
In early 1908, a group of businessmen led by B.J. Scannell and William Paxton, Jr. (1866-1910) and a few others bought the old YMCA Athletic Park, which was located across four blocks that were north of Ames between 25th Avenue and 27th Street. After sitting idle for a season it had served as a circus ground in 1907 when George Hoagland sold it to the group. Originally called the Prairie Trust, the real estate business was eventually called the Prairie Park Company. William Paxton Jr. became involved after his father died and inevitably left him some of his fortune. B.J. Scannell was Paxton Sr.’s private secretary, and likely received an inheritance that allowed him to buy in, too.
Before it was built, the Prairie Park Company placed a number of building restrictions on the subdivision. They included no outhouses of any kind on properties, including garages; no alleys; no wooden or board fences of any kind; and a 23′ setback from the sidewalk. There were also no chickens allowed on the properties. Immediately, people started taking care of vacant lots, planted flowers constantly, and kept the neighborhood well-maintained. To ensure the neighborhood’s success, Scannell bought lots around the Prairie Park subdivision, too, to ensure their care.
Seeking to build new houses “of a uniform high grade,” real estate speculators were “restrained from preventing the development of the district.” Their subdivision was named the Prairie Park Addition, which the newspaper said was to honor of Paxton’s young adopted daughter, Prairie (1905-1930). The earliest houses were built in 1909, with four structures at 27th and Fowler costing $2,500 per house. A few years later a “new six-room house with a reception hall surrounded by new homes” was sold in the addition near North 25th and Meredith for $4,000.
Scannell was a man of his neighborhood. Personally paying for the construction of many houses in the area, he lived there too. A 1959 newspaper article about his long life said, “He lived on Fowler Street when the surrounding area was nothing but cornfields. Scannell developed the district around his home getting streets paved and helping build and sell the homes himself.” He and his first wife Belle (1875-1947), as well as his second wife Zelora (1892-1971), lived at North 27th and Fowler.
In 1910, Scannell built a recreation facility in the neighborhood called the Prairie Park Club, and the building stood for decades afterwards. Located across the street from the neighborhood at 2605 Ames Avenue, the club included several tennis courts and a large building that originally sat on several acres.
Systemic Racism
Within a year of its launch, neighbors in Prairie Park formed an advocacy group. Insisting on white supremacy and racial segregation in their neighborhood, as was the custom in Omaha, Black people were actively kept from moving into the houses there…