O'Connor House

Captain Cornelius O’Connor was born in 1821 in County Cork, Ireland and came to the United States in 1829. He lived in Boston, Mass. and New York City before coming west with his wife Katherine (Duggan) and family in 1857. They took a steamer from St. Louis and landed on May 18 at the already-established St. John’s Colony near Jackson, Nebraska. O’Connor filed a claim near Elk Creek and lived there for four or five years before moving to the homestead near Homer. The family lived in a one-room house there until the mansion on the 1,000 acre farm was built.

Captain and Mrs. O’Connor planned the home themselves and the building on it began in 1875. Captain O’Connor was a carpenter and contractor, and supervised the building of the home. The wedding breakfast of the O’Connor’s oldest daughter, Mrs. Thomas (Helena) Green was held in the home in 1875, which was completed to some extent. The house was completed four years later in 1879. The front parlor and the sitting room are separated by sliding doors of dark wood. The dining room features an inlaid buffet which Captain O’Connor carved out of native walnut. The home was heated by a wood furnace in the basement. There were registers in all the ceilings and floor registers in all the upstairs bedrooms. There were 5 bedrooms in the front part and three in the servants’ part.

Mrs. M. W. Green of South Sioux City, Nebraska, a granddaughter, who lived there with her grandparents, tells of what a big undertaking cleaning time was. Once a year they would have to put fresh straw padding under the wall-to-wall carpeting which was in every room except her grandmothers’ bedroom. They would take all the tacks out of the carpet, take the carpet out on the clothesline and beat the dust out.

As one enters the front door, a visitor can go upstairs on the solid walnut curved stairway; or you can enter the parlor with its Italian marble fireplace; the sitting room with the large bay window facing the east — where Mrs. O’Connor kept her plants. The main hall is paneled in solid walnut paneling which dominates the entire house.

A tour of the home tells you that the O’ Connors loved the little “extras” that made this house something special and that Captain O’Connor meant this house to last. The Dakota County Historical Society purchased this house from Cohn Green, a great grandson in 1968. Open house tours are held the second and third weekends in November.