In 1825, T. B. Roye established an Indian trading station on the present site of the city.
In 1845, a band of Mormons, driven from Illinois, settled slightly north of the Omaha of to-day. They came as "strangers and pilgrims," and called their little settlement by the suggestive title of "Winter Quarters." The Indians, however, insisted that the Mormons should not remain. So pressed, the saints divided their little party. A few families, under the leadership of Elder Kane, crossed the Missouri and started a settlement destined to become Council Bluffs.
The balance of the inhabitants of "Winter Quarters" placed themselves under the leadership of Brigham Young, and with one hundred and eight wagons migrated to Utah, where they immediately staked out Salt Lake City, and began to build their Temple.
By so slight a circumstance Omaha missed being next door neighbor to, or even becoming herself, the New Jerusalem of the Saints.
William D. Brown is conceded to have been the first white settler who staked out a claim on the plateau now occupied by Omaha. He started for the California gold fields. On his way it occurred to him how profitable it would be to establish a ferry across the Missouri to accommodate the thousands passing westward. Putting in practice his idea, in 1852, he equipped a flatboat for that purpose. He named this venture of his "Lone Tree Ferry," from one solitary tree on the landing, just east of where in Omaha to-day stand the Union Pacific Shops.
In the spring of 1853, Mr. Brown staked out a claim embracing most of the original town site of Omaha.
July 23, 1853, Brown became a member of the Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company, whose object was to open a steam ferry, and to establish a town on the west bank of the river. Despite protests from Indians and without consent of the United States, in the winter and early spring of 1854, what is now Douglas County was nearly covered by staked-out claims of "sooners" and speculators.
May 23, 1854, Nebraska was admitted into the Union as a Territory, and in the same year Douglas County was created. Immediately, upon a beautiful plateau, a town site was selected, laid out, and christened Omaha.
The first house in Omaha was commenced before Omaha itself legally existed. It was built by Thomas Allen. It was a log house, was named the St. Nicholas, was used as a hotel, a store, or anything else which the public demanded.
In July of the same year another house was built—this one being of pine flooring. It was on the present site of Creighton College. Here, a few weeks after its erection, the first native Omaha boy first saw the light, and from this same house, a few days later, an Omaha citizen first passed out to that mysterious country