City of Omaha Landmarks Heritage Preservation Commission
This article covers Omaha Landmarks designated by the City of Omaha Landmark Heritage Preservation Commission. In addition, it includes structures or buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places and those few designated as National Historic Landmarks, indicating their varying level of importance to the city, state and nation.
The following list includes individual properties, as well as historic districts and National Historic Landmarks in Omaha. Residential, commercial, religious, educational, agricultural and socially significant locations are included.
Omaha has sought to preserve its historic landmarks for more than 50 years. The first city report on historical sites written in 1959, and the first buildings in the city were listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings in the 1960s. The demolition of the Old Post Office in 1966, along with the Old City Hall the next year, were rallying points for preservationists in the city. Omaha developed a comprehensive plan for landmark preservation in 1980.
Some years, the demands of changing business in Downtown Omaha have overridden the desires of preservationists to maintain historic structures. In 1989, all 24 buildings of the area's "Jobbers Canyon" were demolished, representing the highest number of buildings lost at one time that were listed on the National Register of Historic Places to date. The Christian Specht Building is the only extant building with a cast-iron facade known in Nebraska today, and one of the few built in the state.
The Burlington Train Station, also a downtown historic landmark, sat empty for more than thirty years and was stripped of much of its historical grandeur. In 2006 a group of developers began renovating the building for mixed-use, which will include residential condos. Not all of the buildings lost are deemed significant; the Omaha Auditorium, designed by noted and prolific local architect John Latenser, Sr., was almost universally panned for its gaudy and half-completed construction.
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