Omaha daily bee., 1921-06-19
Omaha Fell Into Position AS
MidWest's Jobbing Center
BY Odd Turns of Fortune
Yates Seemed Arrayed Against Little Trading Post
In Early Days When President Lincoln Declared
Council Bluffs Should Be Western Terminus
Of fU.P. Then They Made Strange Shifts.
BY A. L. LONG.

Of the middle west, tllrobbing witt
industry, aud with every throb fore
ing streams of merchandise from it
wholesaling center along arteries o
rails to a hungry surrounding EN-
pire, started on this headlong career
as trading post
Who was there who had the cour
age 90 years ago to say that Omaha
was destined to become a grea
iobbing center, feeding millions in {
half dozen or more surrounding
states?
Did not the great Lincoln himsel
stand on a spot in Council Bluffs
dig his heel into the earth and de,
clare, "This shall be the terminus ol
the Union Pacific railway" Die
Omaha have chance at that time
to figure as a great distributing cen
ter? No, on that day Omaha
chances we're small as the gambler
would have measured it.
Dozen Trading Posts.
AT that early date there were a
dozen trading posts along the Mis-
souri, river that had as good chance
to becoming the distributing center
Of the middle west as did Omaha.
Bellevue it seemed had a better
chance than Omaha A shrewd
gambler would probably have not
bet on Bellevue as against Omaha at
that time. A shrewder still would
doubtless have pitted Council Bluffs
against the field, especially after the
great president, who was responsible
for the building of the Union Pacific
had made his choice.
A business man from whatsoever
corner of the globe, scanning the
two hemisphcrcs for opportunity,
would have said Council Bluffs has
been made by the president OF the
American republic, it must become
the distributing center of the west
ern half of the United States, and
Omaha will always be the tail OF
the great dog sticking over on the
Nebraska side of the Missouri river.
Omaha Fools EN-.
But Omaha was destined to arise
and overthrow the wisest judgment
in this respect AS for reasons, well,
that is matter that involves a lot
of tracing back. and even then is a
matter OF opinion. History does not
give reasons. 1t leaves only facts.
and leaves the historians to supply
the conclusions from those facts.
History then leaves US the facts
that in the very early period Coun-
ell Bluffs was the real jobbing cen
ter for the early development OF this
empire now tributary to Omaha and
Council Bluffs. From the Council
Bluffs side of the river the business
men looked over, sneered little and
said, "Oh, that's little place called
Omaha that you see budding along
the Nebraska side of the river"
Cross On Ice.
When they had business in that
little place" they ferried across the
river in summer and crossed on the
ice in the winter as did also the jack
rabbits and the coyotes.
True the trappers and hunters
from the upper Missouri river coun-
trv and the Platte valley and its
western tributaries, where beaver
doomed in abundance, used to strag-
gle into the little village OF Omaha
10 trade furs for whisky, bacon and
beans. But that wasn't jobbing.
That was retailing in an extreme
crude way.
Gradually across the river in
Council Bluffs distributing center
was growing up. The lands III
Iowa were being settled. and home
steaders were taking up claims in
Nebraska. More and more Ne
braska homesteaders and farmers
were needing supplies. They had to
go to Council Bluffs to get them.
Thus on the Iowa side grew up
early a grocery distributing center
and great farm implement dis
tributing center. Clothing whole
eaters also were doing business from
there. Farmers in Nebraska needed
overalls, shirts, groceries, plows,
harrows, threshing machines, har-
vcsters, hay tools and barbed WIRE
Pay Heavy Tolls.
AS the population Of Nebraska
and the territory west Of the river
increased its demands on the jobbmg
center increased, and yet every trip
necessitated a crossing Of the river
and a paying of heavy tolls either
for the ferry services, or later tor
the dummy service across the
u. P. street bridge.
MANY and many time, ana
often two. three, or four times day
| have ridden the dummy across
and back at 50 cents a fare" said
Frank L. Haller, in reminiscing the
other day.
That s0-cent fare for each trip
across the river grew tiresoine to
the Nebraskans and they began more
and more to cry for distribution ar
rangements on the Nebraska side so
that they might not be compelled to
so to Iowa every time they wanted
supplies of any consequence.
Soon a few distributors began to
spring up in Nebraska.
Grocery Jobbers Early.
Groceries were among the first
and prime necessities, and it may
safely be said that the grocery DIS
tributing business was among the
first to spring into existence on the
Nebraska side. OF the present day
survivors of the early jobbing houses
in this line, McCord & Brady and
Paxton G. Gallagher company were
among the earliest.
The first gun at Sumpter, the
..ening gun Of the great civil war,
nd not yet doomed when Nave Nc
Cord & Co. first established busi-
ness on Farnam street. The western
ers were glad to welcome distrib-
uting house of this kind and the
company prospered until it built a
building at the southeast corner OF