“Big, Ugly Red Brick Buildings”: The Fight to Save Jobbers Canyon (Article begins on page 3 below.) This article is copyrighted by History Nebraska (formerly the Nebraska State Historical Society). You may download it for your personal use. For permission to re-use materials, or for photo ordering information, see: https://history.nebraska.gov/publications/re-use-nshs-materials Learn more about Nebraska History (and search articles) here: https://history.nebraska.gov/publications/nebraska-history-magazine History Nebraska members receive four issues of Nebraska History annually: https://history.nebraska.gov/get-involved/membership Full Citation: Daniel D Spegel, “ ‘Big, Ugly Red Brick Buildings’: The Fight to Save Jobbers Canyon,” Nebraska History 93 (2012): 54-83 Article Summary: Omaha city leaders touted the Jobbers Canyon warehouse district as a key to downtown redevelopment. But that was before a major employer decided it wanted the land. The ensuing struggle pitted the leverage of a Fortune 500 company against a vision of economic development through historic preservation. The result was the largest-ever demolition of a district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Editor’s Note: Most of the photographs that illustrate this article were shot in the mid-1980s by Lynn Meyer, City of Omaha Planning Department. Cataloging Information: Names: Sam Mercer, Lynn Meyer, James Hanson, Charles M (Mike) Harper, Marty Shukert, Bernie Simon, Harold Andersen, Mark Mercer, George Haecker, Robert Fink, Michael Wiese, Bruce Lauritzen, Leonard Sommer, Mark Himes, Warren Urbom, Richard Kopf Nebraska Place Names: Omaha Keywords: Jobbers Canyon; National Register of Historic Places; Omaha Jobbers and Manufacturers Association; 1966 Central Omaha Plan; Omaha City Planning Department; Central Business District plan (1973); Central Park Mall; Marina City; National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA); National Trust for Historic Preservation; Nebraska State Historic Preservation Board; Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP); Landmarks, Inc; Landmarks Heritage Preservation Commission (LHPC); reinforced concrete; National Park Service; ConAgra Foods; Omaha Development Foundation; Lonergan Lake; Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce; Riverfront Redevelopment Plan; People for Responsible Omaha Urban Development (PROUD) Photographs / Images: looking west along the 800 block of Harney Street in 1986; looking west on the 800 block between Harney and Howard; inside the John Deere Plow Company Building; Jobbers Canyon from the northeast, 1920s; Rector and Wilhelmy Company Building; American Radiator Company Building; Richardson Building AKA Lindsay Bothers/New Idea Building; Nash Block; Kingman Implement Company Building AKA US Tire Company Building; Crane Company Building; Fairbanks, Morse and Company Building; John Deere Plow Company Building; John Day Company Building; Brunswick-Balke-Collender Building; US Supply Building; Dempster Building; Lee-Coit-Andreesen Hardware Company Building; Harding Cream Company building; J K Lee Warehouse Building; Carpenter Paper Company Building; Omaha Cold Storage Company Building; Creighton Block; unnamed building owned by D H Foods Company; J I Case Plow Works Building; Trimble Brothers Building; looking east through the 900 block alley between Farnham and Harney; inside the Dempster Building; Fairbanks, Morse and Company Building mostly destroyed; demolition of the Trimble Brothers Building; Heartland of America Park and ConAgra Headquarters; looking north along the 400 block of South Ninth Street between Harney and Howard; graffiti on the ceiling of the Lee-Coit-Andreesen Hardware Company Building ''T he use of warehouses will offend some citizens. Looking west along They will ask how a warehouse can be beautiful, the 800 block of for only state capitols or things that had an aes­ Harney Street in 1986. The Carpenter Paper thetic intent can be beautiful. These are the same people Company Building who love plastic injection molded Mediterranean cabinets (#17) is on the left; for their kitchen." World-renowned architect and academic the pickup is parked George Nelson uttered these words during a 1976 Omaha ''beside the H. J. Lee speech regarding urban renewal and the city's 1973 riv­ Warehouse (#15). Photo numbers correspond 1 erfront redevelopment proposal. In an almost prophetic to map on p. 61 and manner he also spoke to a debate that would occur more to building photos than ten years later, which resulted in the largest-ever and descriptions demolition of a district l.isted on the National Register of on pp. 62-67. Historic Places. Known as "Jobbers Canyon," this great collection of warehouses near the Omaha riverfront stood in the way of a massive redevelopment project that would have kept a large corporation from relocating to another area. The corporation's CEO did not care for the warehous­ es and was unwilling to include them in the project. The city had long sought to rejuvenate the downtown district, which had been in decline for more than twenty years, and its leaders felt that the loss of a Fortune 500 Company would lead to its demise. Some of Omaha's most influential people impressed upon city officials that nothing should prevent the immense project from going forward, even if that meant reducing the historic district to rubble. The mayor and his staff ultimately agreed. News of the danger that faced Jobbers Canyon reached across the country, and a group of preserva- tionists rallied in an attempt to save it, but a precarious political environment left this group disjointed. Their unsuccessful efforts reveal the vulnerability of historic structures when faced with high-dollar developments and economic uncertainty. Jobbers Canyon's historical with Omaha cemented as a major transportation Unless otherwise noted, significance is rooted in the settlement of the West, hub to the western United States, a thriving whole­ photos in this article were and to many mid-nineteenth century pioneers sale jobbing industry established itself in the city. shot in the mid-1980s by the frontier began on the Missouri River's western "Jobbers," who purchased commodities directly Lynn Meyer, City of Omaha shore. In 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act opened the from manufacturers and sold them to retail outlets, Planning Department. door, and many people crossed the river at Council weathered the volatile economic conditions of the Bluffs, Iowa, to settle in the new town of Omaha. late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Pioneers chose this location, in part, because helped propel Omaha's commercial growth. it offered many opportunities for trading and Utilizing the moniker "Omaha the Market Town," transportation ventures. the Omaha Jobbers and Manufacturers Association Omaha grew outward from its birthplace on the advertised heavily during the spring and fall buy­ banks of the Missouri River, but the center of com­ ing seasons. One such advertisement described merce did not stray too far inland. Businesses such Omaha and its business climate as "the largest as transportation, manufacturing, and trading com­ jobbing and manufacturing market in this territory. panies strategically anchored themselves near the It is so located that the transportation problem natural shipping network afforded by the river, an and the freight problem are simplified for every area that became even more desirable after Omaha merchant in the central west. The stocks carried was selected as the eastern terminus of a new here are as varied as any in the country and the transcontinental railroad in 1863. Around 1880, methods of doing business are the most pleasant and agreeable." Another declared, "Omaha job­ bers have conformed to the requirements of retail trade in every way and not only do they guarantee their goods, but their prices and delivery-all are adjusted to meet the needs of merchants. Omaha is now recognized by progressive merchants of the central west as the most inviting and in every way the most satisfactory market in which to trade." 2 Around the turn of the century, some of the city's largest wholesale companies built impressive ware­ houses, with a concentration just west of the river at a place of higher elevation less prone to seasonal flooding. Because the massive structures created an urban "canyon" along a three-block stretch of Ninth Street, the district was eventually known as "Jobbers Canyon." Conditions that framed the demise of Jobbers Canyon developed slowly for more than twenty years. Downtown Omaha remained the center of commerce well into the twentieth century, but its dominance waned as the city grew outwards. The 1960s and 1970s saw the construction of a highway system, industrial and office parks, and suburban shopping centers such as Crossroads Mall and Westroads Mall, which helped draw new housing developments farther from downtown. Omaha decentralized as its population density thinned with the far-flung developments-an experience it shared with many other U.S. cities. By the end Looking west on the 800 Block between Harney and Howard. The tracks run between the Creighton Block (#19) on the left and the Carpenter Paper Company Building (#17) on the right. The John Deere Plow Company Building (#9) is visible through the alley. 56 • NEBRASKA history of the 1970s the downtown district lost its place as and CBD Task Force Co-Chair Ted Crouchley stated Omaha's regional retail and office center. City lead-· in their transmittal letter that the report "stresses ers recognized the decline;