J.P. Cooke Building 1885-1889
The Old Market Historic Walking Tour
Omaha's first municipal swimming pool, "The New Natatorium," originated in the basement of the westernmost of these three buildings; and vestiges of it can still be seen there. The ornamental work at the building's top announces that E. Homan Thayer constructed it in 1889. The cast iron facade is considered a classic, and the immense windows suggest the then-contemporary development of the curtain wall and skyscraper in Chicago. Skinner Manufacturing's first plant was located here briefly in 1911-12, and later it was home to Peterson Litho & Printing Co. In the early 1960s, J.P. Cooke & Co., makers of a variety of rubber and metal stamps, moved here. It succeeded the Cooke Time Stamp Company, founded in Omaha in 1887. The construction of the properties abutting to the east was begun about 1885. The notable occupant of these buildings was Tribune Publishing, which printed the Daily Tribune, at one time the only German-language daily in the West. It was one of the few German papers that survived the harsh feelings occasioned by Germany's participation in World War I.
Marker is on Howard Street near 13th Street, on the right when traveling east.
Courtesy hmdb.org
