by JANIS on JULY 10, 2020 EDIT
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61. In 1917, Father Edward J. Flanagan, a young Irish priest in Omaha, borrowed $90 to rent a boarding house for orphaned and troubled boys. All boys –regardless of race or religion– were welcome at Father Flanagan’s Home for Boys.
62. In 1921, Father Flanagan purchased Overlook Farm — located on the outskirts of Omaha — and relocated his Boys’ home there. Under Flanagan’s direction, Boys Town grew to be a large community with its own boy-mayor, schools, chapel, post office, cottages, gymnasium, and other facilities where boys between the ages of 10 and 16 could receive an education and learn a trade. Flanagan did not believe in the reform school model, and stated, “there’s no such thing as a bad boy“. In 1936, Boys Town became an official village in the state of Nebraska.
Boys Town
Men Of Boys Town
63. News of Father Flanagan’s work spread worldwide after the 1938 movie Boys Town. Actor Spencer Tracy won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Father Flanagan. In 1941, Spencer Tracy reprised his performance as Father Flanagan opposite a young Mickey Rooney in the sequel Men of Boys Town.
Today Boys Town is a non-profit organization dedicated to the care, treatment, and education of at-risk children and their families at nine locations throughout the United States. It’s headquartered in the village of Boys Town, a suburb of Omaha with a population of 745.
64. The Boys Town Visitors Center has the world’s largest ball of stamps, measuring the 32 inches in diameter, consisting of 4,655,000 stamps, and weighing 600 pounds.
65. Malcolm X — an African American civil rights activist — was born as Malcolm Little in Omaha on May 1, 1925. Due to Ku Klux Klan threats, the Little family moved from Omaha to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1926, when Malcolm was just a year old.
While the house where Malcolm X first lived with his family in North Omaha is long gone, a historical marker notes its location at the 10-acre Malcolm X birthplace site, listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1984. The Malcolm X Memorial Foundation is headquartered here.
66. Costing more than $1 million to build, the upscale Hotel Fontenelle opened in 1915 at 1806 Douglas Street in downtown Omaha. In 1920, Gene Eppley acquired the Fontenelle, making it the flagship of his Eppley Hotel Company, which was headquartered in Omaha.
67. By the 1950s, the Eppley Hotel Company owned 22 hotels across six states — the largest privately held hotel company in the US. In 1956, Eppley sold his hotel empire to Sheraton Hotels $30 million –equivalent to $282 million in 2019. The Fontenelle Hotel closed in 1971, and was demolished in 1983.
68. Upon his death in 1958, Eugene Eppley donated $1.0 million towards upgrading the Omaha Municipal Airport for jet aircraft. The federal government matched Epply’s contribution, and in 1960 the upgrade to handle jets was complete. The airport was renamed Eppley Airfield, which served more than five million passengers in 2019.
69. Fred Astaire — known as the most influential dancer in the history of film — was born in Omaha on May 10, 1899. His father had moved his family to Omaha to work as a brewer at the Storz Brewing Company.
70. In 1905, when their father lost his job at the brewery, the family moved to New York City where Fred Astaire and his sister Adele became a “brother and sister act”. This was the start of Fred’s stage, film and television career that spanned 76 years.
71. Actor Marlon Brando — known for his performances in A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront and The Godfather, among many others — was born in Omaha on April 3, 1924.
72. Dodie Brando, Marlon Brando’s mother, starred in The Enchanted Cottage, the first play put on by the Omaha Community Playhouse when it was founded in 1924. Today, 96 years later, the Omaha Community Playhouse is the largest, one of the most famous, and one of the best-endowed community theaters in the United States.
73. Back in 1924, when the Playhouse’s needed a young man to play the lead for You and I, Mrs. Brando suggested twenty-year-old Henry Fonda, her friend Herberta Fonda’s son. Fonda was cast as Ricky.
On Golden Pond
74. Fonda went on to Hollywood where his acting career spanned five decades. He won the Oscar for Best Actor for his final film role in the 1981 movie On Golden Pond, which also starred Katharine Hepburn and his daughter Jane Fonda.
75. Actor Nick Nolte was born in Omaha in 1941. He attended Omaha’s Westside High School where he was the kicker on the football team, graduating in 1959. Nolte moved to Los Angeles, and got his big break in lead role in the 1976 miniseries “Rich Man, Poor Man.” Nolte used his football skills in the 1979 movie North Dallas Forty.
76. Nolte won the Golden Globe award for Best Drama Actor for his 1991 performance in the Prince of Tides with Barbra Streisand.
77. Gale Sayers, a NFL Pro Hall of Fame football player for the Chicago Bears, grew up in Omaha and graduated from Omaha Central High School where he starred in both football and track and field.
Brian’s Song
I Am Third
78. In 1967 Sayers and his Bears teammate Brian Piccolo became the first interracial roommates in the NFL. Sayers’ friendship with Piccolo and Piccolo’s struggle with cancer became the subject of Brian’s Song, a made-for-TV movie. The movie was adapted from Sayers’ account of this story in his 1970 autobiography, I am Third.
79. Oscar-nominated director, producer and screenwriter Alexander Payne – best known for the films Election (1999), About Schmidt (2002), Sideways (2004), The Descendants (2011), and Nebraska (2013) — often sets his films in and around his hometown of Omaha.
80. Payne, the youngest of three boys, grew up in what is now known as Omaha’s Dundee-Happy Hollow Historic District, the same neighborhood as billionaire Warren Buffett.
Click here to continue to Part 4 of 99 Interesting Facts to Know About Omaha, Nebraska.
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