Grand Central Hotel, Omaha

Omaha’s most ambitious building at its opening, the Grand Central Hotel is documented here by local photographer Edric L. Eaton. The five-story Second Empire structure was the commercial heart of a rapidly growing city, yet its prominence was brief. Opened in 1873, the hotel was destroyed by fire just five years later, a fact which renders any in-situ photographic record of its existence scarce and this exposure one of the strongest surviving architectural studies of the lost landmark.