Omaha Exploration

As the Rose & Crown Pub approaches its third decade, the building near the intersection of 20th Street and St. Mary’s Avenue dates back more than a century. It was originally built as a St. Louis flat. A 1918 real estate listing for the flats advertised one of the units as having six large rooms on the second floor with a large front porch.

Starting in 1921 Veretta Crane opened what was among the the first female owned mortuary’s in the country. Prior to that, she had been in charge of the monument department at the Woodmen of the World. She started the business after graduating from the Worsham School of Undertaking at Chicago. Upon opening Crane Mortuary she said, “It seems to me that people would fear live people rather than dead ones”. Interestingly there happened to be real estate listings even as it operated as a mortuary. The all-woman operated mortuary was short-lived and appears to have closed by 1928.

After that the building seems to have operated primarily as residential with first floor offices. It became the long time home to Irving Wilkie’s thriving real estate business starting in 1946. What started as Wilkie & Beckwith later became Wilkie & Co, one of the largest real estate companies in the city. Irving did so well that he was appointed as the president of the Omaha Real Estate Board and was well known for the garden he planted next to his office.

The business was the victim of a burglary in 1955 when safecrackers broke in and pried off the outer door of a large safe before removing the inner door. There was another attempt a couple of months. After tripping a tear gas capsule, they found a large floor fan which they turned out and continued work on breaking the safe. In both cases, the burglars made off with an undetermined amount of money.

It seems Wilkie would close his business – at least at this location – by 1965 at which point Murphy Finance opened one of its multiple locations. Murphy offered “money in minutes” simply by giving them a call.

Ernie Trousdale Jr., a former Midwest Golden Gloves lightweight champion, bought the building in the early 1950s but waited decades to open Ernie’s Tavern in it in 1969. Ernie followed in his father’s footsteps who owned a bar called the Farnam House. By the time Ernie’s opened I suspect the front balcony and columns had long been removed and the cinderblock front was added.

Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the building is that safe in its basement. Ernie didn’t know when it was installed as it was there when he bought the building. It weighed a couple of tons and was so large that three men couldn’t remove it. It was wider than the doorway so the basement must have been framed around it. He even offered the enormous and ugly safe for free to anyone that could remove it.

The safe was cracked again in 1972 after a burglar spent six or seven hours to get inside. After finding the safe empty, the man found an old gun that belonged to Ernie’s father. After stealing the gun, he apparently gave to his wife who later shot and killed him.

Ernie’s operated for at least two decades but it changed hands in 1992 when Bob Johnston opened his restaurant and bar called the Captain’s Cove. It seemed fitting that the bar had a nautical theme when he bought it as he was a sailor from New Zealand. He began working in boatyards at 16 and worked on high profile boats that sailed in the Admiral’s Cup. He met a Nebraska native while in San Diego and moved to Omaha after they married in 1987. To make the space his own, he hired a muralist to paint five sea and island scenes inside the bar.

The Captain’s Cove was short-lived as Welshman Doug Frayne opened Rose & Crown Pub in 1996. Described as having a “traditional, relaxed pub atmosphere” it served authentic codfish and chips, chili, cottage pie and a steak-and-ale pie alongside imported beer and daily specials.

Despite being located near the police station, the bar had developed a reputation as had the neighborhood surrounding it in the 2000s. Even so, the small neighborhood bar owned by Matt Petersen serves as an urban oasis with its secretive patio . The patio is built around a tall tree that acts as a natural umbrella providing shade in the warm summer sun.

These days the Rose & Crown remains a little rough around the edges and definitely shows its age but attracts a diverse and lively crowd. I’m not sure whether the safe is still in the basement but the patio is and was named one of the best by The Reader in 2023.

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