Dirty, Wicked Town (Nebraska)
"It requires but little, if any, stretch of the imagination to regard Omaha as a cesspool of iniquity, for it is given up to lawlessness and is overrun with a horde of fugitives from justice and dangerous men of all kinds who carry things with a high hand and a loose rein...If you want to find a rogue's rookery, go to Omaha."  A Kansas City newspaperHast ever been in Omaha,  Where rolls the dark Missouri down, And four strong horses scarce can draw An emtpy wagon through town? Where sand is blown from ever mound To fill the eyes and ears and throat-- Where all the steamers are aground And all the shanties are afloat? Where whisky shops the livelong night Are vending out their poison juice; Where men are often very tight, And women deemed a trifle loose? Where taverns have an anxious guest For every corner, shelf and crack; With half the people going west, And all the others going back? Where theaters are all the run, And bloody scalpers come to trade; Where everything is overdone And everybody underpaid? If not, take heed to what I say: You'll find it just as I have found it; And if it lies upon your way, For God's sake, reader, go around it!   Poem from 1869 Harper's Magazine