Boulevards in Omaha

Omaha Park and Boulevard System
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Turner Boulevard south of Leavenworth Street. Leavenworth Park is at right.
Location	Omaha, Nebraska
Coordinates	41°14′32″N 95°57′29″W / 41.24222°N 95.95806°W / 41.24222; -95.95806Coordinates: 41°14′32″N 95°57′29″W / 41.24222°N 95.95806°W / 41.24222; -95.95806
NRHP Reference #	13000196
Added to NRHP	April 23, 2013

Boulevards in Omaha are part of a park and boulevard system originally designed in 1889 by Horace Cleveland. There are more than one hundred miles (150 km) of boulevards throughout the city of Omaha, Nebraska today.

The park-and-boulevard system is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1889 Horace W.S. Cleveland proposed that the city of Omaha develop a series of "broad ornamental avenues, known as boulevards or parkways" designed "with a tasteful arrangement of trees and shrubbery at the sides and in the center", similar to the comprehensive plans of European cities in the mid-19th century. His plan was accepted by the city's Parks Commission, resulting in the construction of Florence Boulevard, then called "Omaha's Prettiest Mile Boulevard", in 1892.

Omaha's early boulevard system was viewed as an extension of the parks system in the early park of the 20th century. Florence Boulevard was the first link; the second was Hanscom Boulevard, which was designed to connect the city's first two park, Hanscom Park, with its second, Riverview Park.Happy Hollow, Fontenelle and Turner Boulevards followed. The development of Lincoln Boulevard in Bemis Park was credited with the rapid growth of that subdivision in the early 20th century. A large segment of that boulevard was demolished during the construction of Interstate 480 in the early 1960s, and only a small segment remains.

The boulevard system originally weaved North Omaha, Midtown Omaha and South Omaha together, with sections traveling to Dundee, Gifford Park, Field Club and Benson. Plantings, tree-lined drives and smooth roadways throughout the city were treated with park-like value. A 1915 plan epitomized this ideal by calling for a riverfront boulevard that weaved the entire length of the Missouri River through Omaha. The northern section, called J.J. Pershing Drive, was finished by 1920; Gifford Drive in South Omaha was designed to do the same. However, influential Omaha architect John Latenser was adamant about preventing this project from coming to fruition in Downtown Omaha, where he saw the boulevard potentially impeding on his plans for the Port of Omaha. Because of his resistance this early "back to the river" plan did not succeed.