Iler's Building (Lee, Fried & Co. Wholesale Hardware), 9th & Harney, Omaha

Herman Heyn documents the wholesale jobbing district of Gilded Age Omaha in this composition from his City of Omaha and Vicinity series. The view features the Iler's Building and the massive painted sign of its principal tenant, Lee, Fried & Co. Wholesale Hardware, just a block from the Union Pacific freight yards. As the firm reorganized in 1890, the photograph preserves a specific and transient window into the city’s commercial development, contrasting the substantial brick block with the unpaved street and small frame shanties at its feet.