Published November 25, 2025 | Updated June 10, 2026

The abandoned Salvation Army building at 26th and Center Streets looks like something from The Last of Us. You’ve likely seen the building while driving across the Martha Street bridge.

Located in the former Sheelytown neighborhood, it was built in 1917 by Edwin Stanton Miller. After getting into the grain business in his early 20s, Edwin moved to Beatrice where he started his first mill. After it burned down, he relocated to Omaha and built a new plant at 2501 Center Street.

From the building, Ed alongside his two sons operated Miller Cereal Mills making corn flakes and other products until 1943. By that time, Ed retired and sold the business and the property to Kellogg’s, which continued to use it until 1965 when it moved to 9601 F Street.

It found new life in 1965 when the Salvation Army moved its Men’s Social Services Center in. The seven-story building provided hope and services to men that desperately needed both. Among those services were workforce training, therapy, and housing and clothing for those battling addiction. Within its walls were a kitchen, chapel, recreation center with bowling, pool tables, and a gym, as well as televisions. The men that lived there took part in a six-month treatment program. Those that completed it often left for higher-paying jobs outside the facility. Two years later, the Salvation Army furthered its mission by building a thrift store across the street, which is where the arrow points on the taller building.

By 2001, however, it was beginning to show its age with dingy hallways, stained ceiling tiles, a shaky elevator, and rooms containing mismatched furniture. Combined with the expense to heat the old building, the Salvation Army opted to relocate to a new facility at 25th and Dodge Streets.

Its latest incarnation came in 2004 when Virgil Anderson of Anderson Excavation bought it. In recent years, however, the building sat mostly vacant before Clarity Development announced it would be razed in favor of an apartment building and row houses. It was to be part of the larger Intersections project, which included sports fields and a health center. The project fell through in 2022 and while it was subsequently sold to an LLC, it remains vacant with no announcements as to the future of the long-abandoned property. So for now, this deteriorating relic still stands as it waits for whatever comes next.

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Sources

• Omaha World-Herald newspaper archives
• Beacon – Douglas County, NE – Report: 0224550003
  Edwin Stanton Miller (1865-1950) – Find a Grave Memorial