Omaha only had two parks when they commissioned prominent landscape architect Horace Cleveland to design a comprehensive and intertwined park and boulevard system. The current parks were Jefferson Square which is now a parking lot under I-480 and Hanscom Park. He proposed creating a new large park to the west so that it could shut out the sights and sounds of the city.
The city council settled on land that included a wooded ravine that followed a small stream known as Patrick’s run. It also contained impressive elm trees for which the park was named. Another notable feature was the rock-walled spring which citizens used to fill empty jugs with the sparkling water from the hillside stream. It was said that the water originated in the Black Hills. It was so popular, in fact, that people often had to wait in line for up to 30 minutes to get their turn.
The first parcels of land for Elmwood Park were donated to the city. Before you know it, they had acquired the first 55 acres by 1889. Since it was three miles west of downtown, the park was only accessible by buggy or automobile at first. To allow for easy access to the park, three bridges were constructed over the ravine. It wasn’t until the streetcar line was extended along Leavenworth to the park entrance in 1910 that it became accessible to the masses.
Noted architect F. A. Henninger designed a pavilion that resembled a Spanish mission and by 1915, an 18-hole public golf course was established adjacent to the park. The course didn’t have a clubhouse of its own so the following year golfers bought and remodeled a nearby house at 5912 Leavenworth to serve as such. The house still stands today.
By the time that auto tourist camps became a thing, the park had grown to 215 acres. Popular with those traveling across the county, the city carved out space in the NE corner of the park in 1921 for the camp. Amenities included a cook house, telephone, and bathrooms. The cost was 50 cents per day for a maximum of four days. The camp was closed by 1933 and the buildings that had served the campers were converted into a proper clubhouse for the golf course.
The Omaha Amatuer Baseball Association commissioned a statue that would come to be called Bosco and donated it to the city. The statue was so bad that it drew ridicule as no one could discern whether the batter was right or left handed, whether it represented a hit or a strikeout or even who the famous player was. Its time at the park was short lived as it was sent to the World War II scrap drive in 1942. Next to Bosco sat a totem pole that was purchased from Native Americans in Alaska in 1909 and donated to the library in 1921. The totem was relocated to Hummel Park after WWII and disappeared a few years later.
After seeing monkeys in a park in Minneapolis, the parks commissioner decided that Elmwood should also have monkeys. To that end, he created monkey island in 1933. It was surrounded with a three foot deep moat which was designed to keep them in. It didn’t take long for the primates to figure out it wasn’t difficult to traverse the moat at which point they were sent to live at Riverview Zoo.
This was around the time that University of Omaha decided to relocate its campus from North Omaha to the western edge of the park. The university continued to grow and suggested that it could expand to the east. Fortunately the park was saved as a result of a 1951 Nebraska Supreme Court ruling. By then the streetcar lines on Leavenworth were abandoned and the city determined that water from the spring was contaminated and unsafe for consumption.
Neighbors of the park first thought a public swimming pool would be an undesirable feature and prevented it for a number years until 1964. The last of thre old bridges was torn down and replaced with a pedestrian bridge in 1980. The grotto was restored in 2000 due to a grant from Peter Kiewit Foundation. The improvements included lighting, landscaping, stairways and a ramp into the sunken area of the grotto. They also made changes so that the spring water flowed along a trough and into a pool.
While Elmwood Park isn’t the oldest park in the city, that honor belongs to Hanscom park, it is among the most popular and most utilized. Today it includes everything from the golf course, swimming pool, pavilion, picnic area, playground, exercise equipment, baseball field and hiking trails.
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Until next time, keep exploring!
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