publications

Lincoln City Council’s Imprisonment

A city-wide reform program under Lincoln Mayor Andrew J. Sawyer in 1887 culminated in legal maneuvering which imprisoned both Sawyer and eleven members of the city council in the Douglas County Jail in Omaha. Following a move against gambling interests in Lincoln by newly elected Mayor Sawyer, complaints were lodged against Police Judge A. L. Parsons, charging that he had not accounted for all funds collected by him as fines. After an investigation indicated that the charges of corruption were true, the city council discovered it lacked the power to act. A city ordinance was amended and the police judge position in question was declared vacant.



Parsons and his attorneys then appealed to the U.S. Circuit Court in St. Louis, charging that Parsons was the victim of an ex post facto law and that the city council had no jurisdiction. Circuit Judge David J. Brewer issued a restraining order; and Mayor Sawyer and city council members stood trial in federal court in Omaha for violating the order. They were found guilty, and (when fines assessed against them were not paid) went to jail.



They spent the first few hours with the other prisoners in the Douglas County Jail, but were soon detained separately. After six days they were removed from “jail” and allowed to temporarily return home. Meanwhile the matter had been taken to the U.S. Supreme Court and President Grover Cleveland had been petitioned. On January 10, 1888, the Supreme Court ruled that charges against the mayor and council members be dropped because the circuit judge had acted without jurisdiction.

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Other Publications

The Bachelors’ Protective Union of Kearney

When the Bachelors' Protective Union gave a gala reception for two of its newly married, former members and their brides in March of 1890, the social club for young, ...

U.S. Weather Bureau in 1890s Nebraska

The U.S. Weather Bureau was established by an act of Congress on October 1, 1890. It took over the weather service that had been established in the office of the Chief ...

Canning the Way to Victory

During American participation in World War I the U.S. Food Administration, under the direction of Herbert Hoover, launched a massive campaign to persuade Americans to ...

The Shoemaker’s Ashes

"Edward Kuehl, one of the most peculiar characters that ever lived in Omaha, or anywhere else, was found dead in his bed last night in the back room of his place of ...

Crazy Horse Surrender Ledger Foreward

Red Dog, an Oglala Lakota who lived at the Red Cloud Agency, Nebraska, 1876-77 (Nebraska State Historical Society RG2955.ph).   In the summer of 1876, following the ...

Darryl F. Zanuck

Darryl F. Zanuck Darryl F. Zanuck (1902-1979), a native Nebraskan, produced some of Hollywood's most important and controversial films. He helped found 20th Century Fox ...

The Burlington’s Profitable Pork Special

Nebraska railroads were much concerned with developing an adequate economy in the areas they served. The Burlington, for example, had a long history of caring for the ...

Bungalow Filling Stations

After the giant Standard Oil Company was broken into thirty-four separate companies in 1911, the newly independent Standard Oil of Nebraska dominated the state's market ...

The Bull Fight

This is the perfect time of year for a visit to the old fishin' hole. But a group of fisherfolk from Plainview discovered that this bucolic pastime sometimes has ...

Buffalo Soldiers West

African-American soldiers on the western frontier are the focus of an exhibit at the Nebraska History Museum in Lincoln. Buffalo Soldiers West, on loan from the Colorado ...

Protection for Buffalo

The extermination of the buffalo on the Plains occurred largely between 1870 and 1885. The Nebraska State Journal of Lincoln on February 1, 1874, editorialized in vain ...

Buffalo Hunting

In late October 1877 young Rolf Johnson and three friends left their homes in Phelps County, Nebraska, for a buffalo hunt in northeastern Colorado. The hunt was not very ...

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