January-February 2019 • Nebraskaland 45
reached the Nebraska shore when suddenly his horse broke
through with his fore-feet. He got out and unhitching him
pulled the buggy back and then took the horse by the bit
and tried to get him on the solid ice. The animal, however,
fl oundered about so that he broke the ice in all directions
about him, letting himself and his owner down in the water.
Mr. Mayne scrambled out, but the horse worked himself
under the ice, all but his head, which rested on a cake of ice
which alone prevented him from being drowned."
Oscar Phelps was in serious trouble. His unusual name
probably wasn't a good omen. He may have been named
for a character in a syndicated 1880 short story in which a
young man using the alias "Oscar Phelps" is killed in a duel
by a disguised woman seeking revenge. Or he may have been
named for the soon-to-be-defunct town of Oscar, in Phelps
County, Nebraska. Either way, he was in danger of being
pulled under the ice by the current.
Mayne ran for help. The nearest business was Boyd's Pork
Packing House, Omaha's original meatpacking plant, north of
present-day Lauritzen Gardens. Several plant workers came
with planks and ropes. For the next two hours they struggled
to rescue the horse while a crowd of some 500 onlookers
gathered along the riverbank.
It was dangerous and unpleasant work. Oscar was
fl oundering just below the spot where the plant discharged
its untreated waste directly into the river. And the plant was
no small operation, having slaughtered some 112,000 hogs
during the previous year. Omahans were used to living in a
smoky, smelly, and muddy city, but the Bee noted that the
"work was done in the face of sickening fi lth and stench."
Meanwhile, other drivers and teams of horses crossed the
river that day, oblivious to the danger. It was how things had
always been done. The Bee recommended waiting for another
"cold snap."
It was getting dark by the time Oscar was pulled from
the cold and fi lthy water "in a half dead condition." But the
horse was tough as well as fast. He recovered and was later
sold to Mayne's business partner. The following year the Bee
reported that Oscar Phelps was "winning some fast races
and high honors at Ohio fairs this fall." Running on the soft
dirt of a track probably seemed easy after crossing rotten
river ice.
Visit History Nebraska's website at history.nebraska.gov.
Travelers and workers often braved the icy Missouri River, just like these bridge workers near Rulo in 1886. History Nebraska RG2457-5-24
Future Nebraska Governor James Boyd opened Omaha's
fi rst meatpacking plant in 1872. From Alfred Sorenson, Early
History of Omaha (1876), p. 242.