Fort Omaha

A military post was established here in 1868 as Sherman Barracks, named for Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman, then soon renamed Omaha Barracks and in 1878 Fort Omaha. In 1879, General George Crook, noted Indian fighter and head of the Army's Department of the Platte from 1875-1882 and 1886-1888, occupied a new brick home here that still stands. By the late 1880's, Fort Omaha's 80-some acres had become insufficient for the Army's needs, and a larger post, Fort Crook, was established near Bellevue, leading to Fort Omaha's closure in 1896. It reopened in 1905 as an Army Signal Corps training school, closed in 1913, and reopened again in 1916 as a training school for crews of Army observation balloons. About 16,000 men trained here for service in World War I. When the Army declared Fort Omaha surplus property in 1947, it became a Naval Reserve Manpower Center and afterward served as a recruiting, training, and administrative facility for several branches of the armed forces.

Omaha, Nebraska · United States