Omaha daily bee., 1916-03-07
NEW UNION DEPOT
NEEDED AT ONCE
Present Structure Entirely made
quate to Handle Needs Of City,
Which Deserves Better.
FIRST IMPRESSION IS BAD

Omaha business men without ex-
ception are with The Bee in It's de-
mand for better union depot facilities
in Omaha. When interviewed upon
the subject. without hesitation they
express their opinions, all being
unanimous in their conviction that
the union depot here is not In keep
ing with the Importance of the busl-
ness interests of the city.
Many of the business men when
interviewed point to the fact that
scattered all over the United States,
cities nowhere as large as Omaha
and none of them doing the volume
OF business transacted by this city,
have union stations that are far su-
perior in all respects. The business
men here when approached upon the
subject of a union station, point to
the fact that the one here is out of
date, totally inadequate and worst of
all is a continual bad advertisement
for strangers passing through the
sity.
The following are the opinions of
)ow business men of the city look
ppon the depot situation as It exists
at this time:
Railroads Good Walters.
Edwin s. Jewell-Most of people now
living in Omaha will be dead before we
ever get Union depot here, IL the rail-
roads are as slow about It as they were
in Chicago. The Illinois Central there had
an old shack of depot for many many
years, that would not have made a decent
COW shed. Railroads figure that a depot
is dead expense and that ii they build
the finest depot in the world, not one
more passenger will ride their lines by
reason of the new depot So they wait
just as long as they can before build
ing.
C. s. Hayward-The present so-caliei
Union depot here is wholly inadequate
for the purposes for which it is intended
and II is a shame tnaJ { city OF the size
and Importance of Omaha has to put up
with it, There are few cities OF half the
size of Omaha that do not have better
Union depot facilities. 1t is a back num-
Der, antiquated style and not only much
too small but entirely out Of date.
Auto Dealers Views.
W. Z. Foshier-With the business that
Omaha is giving the railroads It is too
bad that they do not appreciate II to at
least the extent of giving the city a union
station that would at least be respecta-
BILE. To people entering a city their i'm
preston is generally formed by the
front that is put up. Enter Omaha from
any direction and be landed at the Union
depot and the front that Is presented
leads one to the belief that the city Is
run down and of little Importance. They
get this idea from the Union depot that
is little more than a shed-a depot that
would be a disgrace to a city OF 5000
inhabitants. Here we have a city OF
100000 or more, one of the most activs
and energetic in the country. and still
We are forced to put up with whatever
the railroads see fit to give us in the
way of a union station. believe It is
high time for the Commercial club. the
Improvement clubs. the other civic or
ganizations and the citizens generally to
take some action I'm the premises. We
ought to get together and present a solid
front and demand union station that
would be a credit to Omaha. Either place
It on the present site or somewhere else.
but let US unite In. our demands and
insist upon a depot that would be COM
-mensurate with the Importance of the
city. Omaha has been pretty good to the
railroads and it Is high time they cont
menced being good to Omaha
All should Work Together.
W. B. Weeks-We ought TO have bet
ter union depot, and believe that II the
people will get behind movement, han
died In the right way, the railroads will
give us what we are entitled to in the
premises. We are pouring money into
the railroad treasures and they ought to
reciprocate to the extent of erecting a
structure here that would be a credit to
the city. They have done it elsewhere,
and there is no reason why they should
not do something for Omaha. Omaha has
never asked the railroads for much. and
now II is high time that we get together
and make our demands and then follow
them up. We will never accomplish any
thing by sitting around waiting for the
railroads TO take the initiative. There is
no city that I know of that does not have
much better depot than Omaha. The
depot that we do have is of such a char
acter that it gives strangers passing
through on the trains bad impression
OF the city, to say nothing OF its being
entirely inadequate TO our needs