Omaha, Nebraska - Plaque: Japanese Balloon Bomb Exploded Here

The Japanese Balloon Bomb Site plaque was outside Carl S. Baum Druggists, which has since gone out of business. However, the building was renovated a few years ago, and now houses a Subway Sandwich Shop and an eCreamery Ice Cream Shop. The locally famous Dundee Dell Restaurant is adjacent. [Stacy, 08/01/2008]

I regret to inform you that the Kohll's Rexall soda fountain, which was in said drug store, in the Dundee neighborhood in Omaha, is gone. They finally took the soda fountain out, so the National Association of Soda Jerks will have no place to go if they meet in Omaha again. [Don Fraysier, 05/30/2004]

In the quaint Dundee neighborhood of Omaha, there is a plaque commemorating the "Bombing of Dundee." A Japanese incendiary balloon exploded over the neighborhood in 1945. The Japanese made many such devices, but most exploded over the west coast. Few made it so far inland as the Dundee balloon.

Also of interest is the neighborhood itself, a former suburb, annexed in 1917 or so, by the city of Omaha. A little ways from the plaque marking the balloon explosion can be found Kohll's Rexal Drug, which has a working soda fountain, and has been a favorite hang-out for the National Association of Soda Jerks when they hold their convention in Omaha. [Don Fraysier, 01/21/2001]

[RA: Photo added February 2008.]