23. Influential Citizens
The 300 block of Chadron Avenue is a special block for Chadron history. Loomer Opera House, or the “Rink,” as it was popularly known was located on the southeast corner. The old wooden buildings on this block were locations for
banquets, balls, dances, town meetings, traveling dramatic and musical groups, school graduations, and any number of community affairs. Having been built shortly after the start of Chadron, the Opera House was dilapidated by 1918 and taken down.

Another interesting citizen was a very colorful character, L. J. F. Laeger who lived at 319 Chadron Avenue (Hardee’s now occupies this lot). He was known as “Billy Bear” and was said to have been a friend of Buffalo Bill Cody, having been involved in the Wild West Show that Cody owned. He was a clerk with perfect
penmanship, but the special thing was that he had lost most of his fingers and toes after having been lost in a blizzard in Wyoming when he was a young man.

To the west side of the street, the house at 359 Chadron Avenue was
the home of none other than Fannie O’Linn, Dawes County pioneer and Nebraska’s first woman lawyer. It was on the land of Mrs. O’Linn’s that “old town” Chadron had its start.

The small house at 350 Chadron Avenue was the home of Chadron’s leading business woman, Mary E. Smith Hayward. At 343 Chadron Avenue was the early home of Benjamin F. Pitman, business associate of C. F. Coffee and perhaps one of the most active men in business affairs. He later built a house on the northeast corner of 6th and Main Streets.

342 Chadron Avenue was the home of H.F. Maika, one of Chadron’s leading businessmen and owner of Maika Drug. A striking feature of this 1 1/2-story Victorian house, built by this businessman and drugstore owner, is the
spreading-arch gable with its intricate carpentry between the arch and the gable. The narrow full-story gabled dormers, with return cornices in the gables on the north, stand in contrast to the shed roof gable on the south. The shallow roof porch, with its squared corner, gives pleasant entry to this house. The two-toned color accents this picturesque home, characteristic of Victorian style.

The names of the people that lived on this street could have been a great start for a Chadron Who’s Who. On the east side of the street, 334 Chadron Avenue, was the house of Byron L. Scoval, important figure in Chadron banking for many years.