Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha was the last city on Sandburg's Hobo Journey.

For work in Omaha, he was a dishwasher at the Hotel Mercer for a dollar and fifty cents a week. Unfortunately, for the second time on his journey, Sandburg worked a job without pay.

He writes:

It was a little queer how standard was the wage rate for a dishwasher. It never went as low as a dollar and twenty-five cents a week nor a high as a dollar and seventy-five cents a week... The hotel was leased and run by a fancily dressed tall man who slid and slunk rather than walked around the place. He was known as Wink Taylor... At the end of the first week I didn't get my standard pay of a dollar and fifty cents nor likewise at the end of the second week. Then came the word that the Hotel Mercer was closed, gone, up the spout, foreclosed, and Wink Taylor vanished.

In his writings about Omaha, Carl Sandburg reflected that during his travels he had considered joining the Army multiple times. He remembered walking past the recruiting offices in Kansas City, Denver, and Omaha, but each time he neglected to go inside. Sandburg would eventually go on to join and serve during the Spanish-American War.

• Omaha, Nebraska

  
  

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  Omaha was the last city on Sandburg's Hobo Journey.

  For work in Omaha, he was a dishwasher at the Hotel Mercer for a dollar and fifty cents a week. Unfortunately, for the second time on his journey, Sandburg worked a job without pay.

  He writes:

  It was a little queer how standard was the wage rate for a dishwasher. It never went as low as a dollar and twenty-five cents a week nor a high as a dollar and seventy-five cents a week... The hotel was leased and run by a fancily dressed tall man who slid and slunk rather than walked around the place. He was known as Wink Taylor... At the end of the first week I didn't get my standard pay of a dollar and fifty cents nor likewise at the end of the second week. Then came the word that the Hotel Mercer was closed, gone, up the spout, foreclosed, and Wink Taylor vanished.

  In his writings about Omaha, Carl Sandburg reflected that during his travels he had considered joining the Army multiple times. He remembered walking past the recruiting offices in Kansas City, Denver, and Omaha, but each time he neglected to go inside. Sandburg would eventually go on to join and serve during the Spanish-American War.