Omaha’s Lost Cannon

Property Rights? Gun Control?

Too often people speak of the government as if it has a monopoly on being competent and omnipresent in doing so. This is just a flat-out lie. In fact, the more inept government becomes, the more it will oppress citizens to make up for such deficits. Believe in property rights? I do but is the government good at enforcing such rights? Gun control? Well, why would you trust a government which loses a cannon?

 The Great World War took place, only later to become World War I, in July of 1914. The US would enter the war but it rapidly came to an end in 1918. I know this because my great uncle John Cifford Heighway was a lieutenant in the military at the time.

Austria was part of the enemy at the time. Some cannons were seized from their forces and one of those cannons made it to Omaha, Nebraska, and was on display at the Douglas County Civic Center. About a year later, a racist mob rioted over accusations against a Black man named Willie Brown (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_race_riot_of_1919). The Courthouse was set ablaze. Fire went everywhere and while firemen tried to put the fire out, mobs cut the hoses firemen were using and placed the hoses on top of the cannon.

Yet, no one knows what happened to the cannon or where the cannon is. I asked the Douglas County Historical Society. I asked the building commission of the Douglas County Civic Center. They do not know. Someone has to have it. Hey, at least it did not show up at the US Capital on January 6, 2021, to support “insurrectionists”.


Does the County or the City have an archivist or not? Apparently, they do not. How does a cannon become missing? If the government cannot find or track an item like this, why do you continue to have faith in them tracking anything? Why have faith in the government in carrying out any responsibility without substantial flaws and errors?