Crook House

The plaque's line about the commanding officer's home skips a stretch. From 1905 the house served Fort Omaha as an officers' club and mess hall, and only in 1930 did it go back to being the post commander's residence, which it remained until the fort closed in 1973. The state named it a Nebraska State Historical Site in 1970, and in the 1980s the Douglas County Historical Society restored it, furnishing the rooms with period pieces and replanting the Victorian gardens. It is counted as Omaha's oldest building built as a private home.

What the plaque says

Crook House On April 27, 1875, General George A. Crook assumed command of the Department of the Platte, which then included Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, and part of Montana and Idaho. When the head- quarters was shifted from downtown Omaha to Fort Omaha (Omaha Barracks) in 1878, Crook first lived in wooden quarters. An Army authorization for new quarters was approved on June 18, 1878, and this two-story brick structure, Italianate in style, was completed in 1879. The use of troop labor reduced its cost to $7,716.00. In November, 1879, General and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant stayed at the Crook House for three days, and the garrison was invited to a reception. The Crooks' furniture having not yet arrived, the people of Omaha loaned the necessary furnishings. A succession of the nation's influential citizens have been entertained here. From here, President Rutherford B. Hayes reviewed the fort's troops on September 3, 1880. General Crook spent almost forty years on the frontier and was respected by the Indians as a man of honor. He died March 21, 1890, and he and his wife are buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The Crook House has served throughout the years as the home of the commanding officer of the post. The home was entered on the National Register of Historic Places on April 16, 1969. Junior League of Omaha Douglas County Historical Society Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Malcolm X Birthsite — 1.3 mi
  The North Omaha lot where Malcolm Little was born in May 1925 and his family was driven out by the Klan, saved by Rowena Moore and now planned as a cultural center.
• Winter Quarters and the Mormon Pioneer Cemetery — 1.7 mi
  The Latter-day Saint camp of 1846 to 1848 on Omaha land in what is now Florence, where hundreds died the first winter, and the cemetery and trail center beside it.
• Joslyn Art Museum — 3.5 mi
  Omaha's free art museum, a 1931 Art Deco memorial with two modern pavilions, and the keeper of Karl Bodmer's watercolors from the upper Missouri in 1833 and 1834.
• The Durham Museum (Omaha Union Station) — 4.4 mi
  Omaha's 1931 Union Station, Gilbert Stanley Underwood's Art Deco depot for the Union Pacific, closed to trains in 1971 and kept as a city museum with its waiting room intact.

More markers nearby

• Fort Omaha — 0.3 mi
• Malcolm "X" — 1.4 mi
• Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition of 1898 — 1.6 mi
• Winter Quarters — 1.7 mi