Jim McKee: R.E. Moore, attorney, banker, real estate broker and benefactor
(This column originally ran Oct. 26, 2014.)
Were it not for his name being associated with a wing of the Bryan West Campus, there virtually would be no visible remnants of R.E. Moore, who was Lincoln's mayor, Nebraska's lieutenant governor, a prominent attorney, banker and three-term state senator. In 1950, even Moore's spectacular Queen Anne mansion on the northwest corner of 18th and E streets was vacant, awaiting razing for the present Hazel Abel Park.
Robert Emmett Moore was born Oct. 22, 1849, in Clark County, Illinois, where his father was a Methodist minister. Moore graduated with a degree in literature from Illinois Wesleyan in 1869, studied law and was admitted to the Illinois bar at 23. In April 1871, he arrived in Lincoln and established a law practice at #4 O Street on the south side of O between Ninth and 10th streets, and was elected almost immediately police judge at a point when the city of Lincoln had no jail. The Moore family lived on the south side of N Street between 12th and 13th streets.
One of Moore's initial investments was instituted when he platted the 701-lot village of Newton on just under 1,000 acres of land northeast of Lincoln; the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad ran diagonally through it, and it was noted as being 534 miles from Chicago. The village did not prosper; in fact, not a single lot was sold, and on Oct. 22, 1875. the plat was vacated. Today Novartis Drug Co. is the most visible occupant of the almost-a-town's site.
In 1877, Moore associated with his two brothers Thomas and John in forming the Security Investment Co., which dealt in real estate, farm loans and investments, with offices at the "second door east of Ninth above Brugmann's Hardware Store" on O Street. When the firm incorporated in 1886, it moved to a three-room suite in the Richards Block on the northeast corner of 11th and O streets, while Richard Moore moved his family to the northwest corner of 14th and P.
In April 1886, Moore and his brothers incorporated Security Investment Co., and he became the first president of Union Savings Bank at 111 S. 10th St., which closed in 1895 in the waning years of the 1893 national depression. Moore also was associated closely with the City National Bank of Lincoln, was an organizer and president of the First National Bank of Red Cloud from 1882 to 1886 as well as a part of the organizing of Mid West Life Insurance Co. of Lincoln.
As a prominent Republican, Moore served three terms in the Nebraska Senate in 1887, 1891 and 1893, and subsequently became the lieutenant governor of Nebraska from 1895 to 1897.
In 1891, Moore built the pictured 21⁄2-story, masonry, Queen Anne mansion at 1740 E St., which is reminiscent of the extant Clark-Leonard home two blocks to the east at 905 S. 20th St. Moore's home served as apartments during World War II and was extant but vacant in 1955, after which it was razed.
Moore died Dec. 6, 1921. His will left $100,000 to the Lincoln Hospital Association, which had been formed the previous year. In 1919, the association issued a challenge grant to the city of Lincoln in which Moore's bequest was to be matched. The city issued bonds to raise the matching funds, and Lincoln General Hospital was built with the proceeds in 1925, with one section named the Emily J. Moore Annex. A 1940 addition increased the hospital to 175 beds and was called the R E. Moore Memorial Wing. The current Bryan West Campus retains the R.E. Moore name on one wing today.
Today the site of Moore's spectacular house is the quarter-block Hazel Abel Park. It remains one of the jewels in Lincoln's Near South Neighborhood and is frequently used for weddings and gatherings.
Historian Jim McKee, who still writes with a fountain pen, invites comments or questions. Write to him in care of the Journal Star or at .
