Magazine Article Review: A Grand New Design

A Grand New Design by Michelle Stacey photos by Cassie Floto Warner, Smithsonian, December 2025, pp 66-72 86-91.

This is the second story I have read where train tragedy lead to chang.  The first is the train accident in South Jorda, Utah.  After this laws were changed requiring buses to stop at railroad tracks.  In this article, there is a big train accident in a tunnel in New York in 1902 with many injuries and loss of life.  The steam engines made too much smoke, which clouded the stop signal and so one train engineer did not see it and plowed into another.  New York was in need of a completely revamped train system.  This would involve changing everything from steam to electric.  However it also involved levels of trains, with smooth ramps in between to avoid stairs.  It also involved an ingensous way for paying for it.  The project would involve the destruction of 200 buildings, but how to pay for such a project.  William J Wilgus had worked himself up through the train industry.  With no money for a formal education, he apprenticed with an engineer for two years, learning engineering, mechanics  and mechanical drafting.  It was his idea to build layers of tunnels for trains; and then to finance it all by selling air rights, the right to build on the surface.  This included a grand redesign for Grand Central Station.

Many other cities have followed suit, building layers of subway tunnels and then using the surface real estate to help finance the projects.  

Native American Artifacts and Clothes from Joslyn Art Museum.

 There are many artifacts from Native American life displayed at the Joslyn Art Museum.  They are artistic but they also show Native American life.

Ancestor artist, Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) Bandolier bag

Haida button blanket with rib design

Ancestor artist, Umoho (Omaha) breech clothe

left Valery Killscrow Copeland, Oglala Lakota, Honoring Blanket
right, Okta Keen (New Moon) Omaha Tribe of Nebraska, Wearing Blanket with Appliqué

beaded baby mocassins, top Cheyenne, bottom Great Plains

left, ancestor art, Southern Plains, women awl case
middle, Ocheti Sakawin (Sioux), beaded pouch with turtle design
right, elk horn and flint knife

First Moon Ceremony Regalia
girl's buffalo robe behind

Ancestor Artist, Ocheti Sakowin (Sioux) Beaded Dress

Ancestor Artist, Umoho (Omaha) beaded shirt

Pipe Tomahawks

Book Review: Wicked Omaha by Ryan Roenfeld

 Wicked Omaha by Ryan Roenfeld, History Press, Charleston, SC, 2017.

If you want to read exerpts from old news papers about the prostitutes, thieves, murderers, gamblers, suicides and other low-lifes of Omaha this is the place to find it.  The book covers until about 1915 when the red light disgtricts were finally dispersed, and the prostitutes then found in many different areas.  It mentions Tom Dennison's political machine as partially responsible for tolerating the vices.  It also says he was behind the 1919 riot.  

For a long time prostitution was tolerated in Omaha.  The prostitutes were fined $5 at the first of the month, and then free to do what they wanted, sort of like a license.  

I found the book lacking.  I find the most disturbing thing about Omaha history was the racism betwen ethnic groups. The 1909 riot of Irish focing Greeks out of the community, and the race riots of 1919 are examples of this and barely mentioned in the book.  However the author obviously spent considerable time going through newspapers to report on the underbelly of Omaha history.

The Martin Luther King Story from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Pedestrian Bridge

 The Marting Luther King Jr. Pedestrian Bridge starts from the Kiewit Luminarium parking by the Sioux Warrior Statue.  Some of the markers are faded and hard to read, especially the Omaha side.  However this does give a good overview of Martin Luther King's crusade which resulted in greater civil rights.  He was murdered in Memphis in 1968 at the age of 39.

South Omaha Stockyard History as per Historical Plaques by MCC So Omaha

 I ran into the Stockyard markers, which give a history of Magic City and the stockyards,  I am missing 3 and 21.  I will go back and look for them.  The markers are all on So 30th between L and Edward Babe Gomez Avenue, and then on Babe Gomez along the Metro Community College.