A Dirty, Wicked Town: Tales of 19th Century Omaha [Paperback]

The 300-page book is divided into 22 chapters, and in a technique reminiscent of what John Dos Passos did in the "USA Trilogy," Bristow includes excerpts from actual newspaper stories to make the historical context more real. Chapters from this work have been included in "Nebraska Life" magazine, with several more forthcoming.

Bristow grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, and graduated from the University of Northern Iowa. He is formally trained in neither creative writing nor history, but instead holds degrees in psychology. Bristow does not embrace the role of historian in a traditional sense, but rather picks and chooses stories that illuminate different dimensions of Omaha history in an interesting way.

He wrote to me in an e-mail from his Omaha home, "My goal was to tell a limited number of true stories, writing each so that it would read like fiction." Instead of writing a comprehensive history, Bristow was free to use his own criteria to select which tales he relates. He tells me, "I chose the stories I did because each has some universal human quality about it--humor, tragedy, love, hatred, hope, injustice, stupidity--and often all of them mixed in together. That's really why any storyteller chooses his or her subject matter."

The book opens with what can be considered as Omaha's first day. In 1854, a hasty Independence Day picnic was broken up by what appeared to be a hostile band of Indians. The early chapters of the book fill in details about Omaha's settlement and its struggle to attain viability as a community. Famous, and not so famous, episodes in Omaha history are told, all with a deep grounding in documented fact.

Bristow should be lauded for his use of primary sources. He tells me that he began his research with the usual history books, but then branched to primary materials like diaries, newspaper accounts and trial transcripts to bring each story to life. Particularly well handled is the account of the 1879 "Trial of Standing Bear" in which Bristow not only retells the story but compares different versions of Standing Bear's famous speech.

One of the themes that emerges in this unique history book is Omaha's struggle to impose the rule of law on a society that was very much controlled by notions of prairie justice, if any justice at all. In many cases, such as the lynching of George Smith in 1891, mob rule reigned and the police stood helpless as a white lynch mob broke into the County Jail and beat and hung a black man.

Shooting down misconceptions to the contrary, Bristow writes, "Omaha was, from the very start, a scheme." He uncovered plots hatched in Omaha as vast as massive land deals and a puny as rigged card games. The chapter "City of Harlots" discusses how proper society tacitly approved of the city's houses of prostitution.

Bristow wrote to me, "In some ways, each slice of the past is like a foreign country, with its own language and customs and assumptions about the world." "A Dirty, Wicked Town" is a well written and thoughtful book of history that serves as a passport to this foreign land.

It is also clear that Bristow writes through the lens of today, and he is comfortable setting up chapters so that readers can make moral judgments about the tales he is relating. He tells me, "Regarding stories such as the lynching of George Smith, I believe it's important for us to understand that those things really happened, and happened here, in this place, and that they were done by people like us. We need to be reminded of what we are capable of doing to each other."