Early Omaha: Gateway to the West
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In the front of the album, Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company and Union Pacific Transfer: 1864-1871, is a typed one sentence description of each image. From the reference to the homes of Governor Saunders and the Kountze family, these descriptions must have been done by the mid-1880s. An interesting panorama view of Omaha from the river side can be created by matching up images #4, #5, and #7. You can’t match up the foreground because the boats are different but the physical geography can be easily matched showing almost the whole bowl that contained Omaha.

Between the construction dates of the boats and the condition of the railroad construction these images don’t suggest being taken as early as 1864 and the album does not appear to have had earlier images removed. Known photographic images of Omaha in general date to 1866 and after. William Henry Jackson did not start his photographic shop in Omaha until 1866. John Carbutt, a Chicago photographer, was hired to photograph the Union Pacific Excursion to the 100th Meridian which was in the fall of 1866. The Union Pacific Railroad, or the Council Bluffs railroads, in one form or another appear in almost every image. The first rail wasn’t laid in Omaha until July 1865, and you can always see more than just the first rail. The Chicago & North Western didn’t get into Council Bluffs until January 1867. Construction didn’t start on the bridge until late 1868.

Among those, besides Mr. William Brown, of the Lone Tree Ferry Company, to favorably consider the ferry enterprise (Council Bluffs and Nebraska), were Dr. Enos Lowe, Jesse Lowe, Jesse Williams, and Joseph H. D. Street, all of whom resided in Kanesville, now known as Council Bluffs. The Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company was organized in July, 1853 to begin ferry operations between Council Bluffs and Omaha. It was organized under the general corporation laws of Iowa, their charter to continue twenty years. The president was Dr. Enos Lowe, and the other members were Tootle & Jackson, S. S. Bayliss, Joseph H. D. Street, Henn and Williams, Samuel R. Curtis, Tanner and Downs, and others. In addition to owning ferry boats the company also owned property on both sides of the Missouri River. (1)

Steam ferry boats were put on, which continued to run until the expiration of its charter, when bridging of the Missouri River made its renewal unnecessary and it became a thing of the past. During the summer of 1854 the organizers of the ferry company surveyed and laid out the town site of Omaha on a beautiful plateau on the west side of the Missouri River in Nebraska Territory. They built the first commercial building in Omaha which served as the legislative chambers for the first territorial legislature and the first post office. The name Omaha came from the Omaha tribe of Indians that had occupied that vicinity but had sold their lands to the government and settled on a reservation some seventy miles north. This embraced some of the finest lands in the territory. The projectors of this town were mainly the incorporators of the ferry company, whose names were given above, and with one or two exceptions residents of Pottawattamie County, Iowa. (2)

The Missouri River Transfer Company, owned by W. W. Marsh and H. C. Nutt, was set up to handle the transfer of cars of the Chicago & North Western Railroad from their end of track in Council Bluffs across the river to Omaha. Once on the Omaha side the Union Pacific would switch the cars off the ferry. So you might see a Chicago & North Western locomotive backing cars on to the ferry in Council Bluffs and a Union Pacific locomotive pulling them off on the Nebraska side. The Missouri River Transfer eventually became a subsidiary of the Chicago & North Western Railroad, through its Sioux City & Nebraska Railroad. Marsh was a true entrepreneur and was involved in many ventures including both ferry companies.

The 13 photos in this album represent the final and perhaps most active years of the Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company. Some are assumed to have been used as exhibits in a court case as they are so marked in the upper right corner.