Ryan Roenfeld Knihy

All traces of Captain Caldwell’s Potawatomi settlement and the Mormon safe haven of Kanesville were gone from the Indian Creek hollow by 1900, when Council Bluffs already seemed a 20th-century city of bright lights, steam, and smokestacks. The old western trails and steamboats disappeared as the city on the east bank of the Missouri River opposite Omaha became a major American railroad center and the industrial and commercial hub of southwest Iowa. Vineyards and orchards surrounded a growing city, with more acres under glass for greenhouses than anywhere else in the country and a daily stop for the Zephyr, Hiawatha, Rocket, Challenger, and other streamlined passenger trains. The West End was filled in, and new neighborhoods like Danetown and Little Vienna grew with new immigrants. All of the people of Council Bluffs faced fires, floods, and tornados as the “Blue Denim City,” where America’s mail was sorted survived economic upheaval, urban renewal, and eventual resurgence in the last decade of the century.

How did Omaha get its nickname, “The Gateway to the West” and where can you gawk at the footsteps of the first human to walk in space? Just scratch the surface of a city best known for Warren Buffett, college baseball, and a great zoo and find far more than meets the eye. And Secret A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure is just the book you’ll need to uncover all the stories of Nebraska’s lone metropolis. Omaha rises up out of the low broken bluffs along the west bank of the Missouri River and sprawls west across what was once the prairie grasslands of the Great Plains. The buffalo wallows have been replaced by a more urban mix of grit and gentrification, with tree-lined avenues, boulevards, and varied communities that hold on to their heritage for generations. There’s a giant fork in Little Italy and stories told in stone around what was the world’s largest livestock market. There’s an old blues song by Big Joe Williams about an Omaha intersection that’s now on the National Register, and Irish Nationalists erected a grand monument to the Fenian who invaded Canada twice. Anyone in Omaha can take a gander at Goose Hollow or visit a haven for herons, but now author and Omaha enthusiast Ryan Roenfeld takes you on your own behind-the-scenes tour of the Big O. With his book as your guide, you’ll discover a whole new side to the city that’s inspired him for years.

In old Omaha, the scent of opium wafted through saloon doors, while prostitutes openly solicited customers. When the St. Elmo theater ran short of the usual entertainment, the residents could always fall back on robbing strangers. Tenants of the Burnt District squirmed under the extorting thumb of a furniture dealer dubbed the Man-Landlady. The games of chance and confidence and outright municipal graft all played a part in a wicked city where gambler Tom Dennison ran politics and Madam Anna Wilson drove philanthropy. Join Ryan Roenfeld for a stroll along the seamier side of Omaha's past.