UNMC history: Physician also was early entrepreneur

Samuel David Mercer, M.D.

Samuel David Mercer, M. D. (1842-1907), was a physician and surgeon who came to Omaha in 1866 and went on to have a huge impact on the city’s landscape.

He was born in Marion County, Ill., and graduated from McKendree College in Lebanon, Ill. He received his medical education at the University of Michigan, the Chicago Medical College and the Berkshire Medical College of Massachusetts. He served as Assistant Surgeon of the 149th Regiment of the Illinois Volunteers during the Civil War.

Dr. Mercer was one of the founders of the Omaha Medical College (forerunner of UNMC), was professor of clinical surgery and president of the board of trustees of the college. He was chief surgeon of the Union Pacific Railroad, as well as president of the board of United States Army Pension Examiners.

In 1868, he formed a committee to correspond with physicians across the state to organize a state medical society, which resulted in the Nebraska State Medical Society (now Nebraska Medical Association). He served as secretary of the new state medical society from 1868-1875.

He was a member of the Omaha Board of Trade, the Masonic Lodge and the Omaha Pathological Society. He was surgeon for the Omaha Smelting Works, and local surgeon of the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad. In 1878 he was the author of “Spinal Curvatures, and Treatment of Spinal Diseases by Plaster of Paris Jacket (Sayre’s Method).”

From the 1880s until his death, Mercer was a real estate developer and entrepreneur. He operated a pharmaceutical business (Mercer Chemical Company)in what is today the Old Market area, near 11th and Howard streets.

In 1885, he built a 23-room, red-brick mansion in the Queen Anne style near 39th and Cuming streets, which his family occupied until 1920 and which still stands today. He developed the neighborhood around his home, known as Walnut Hill, where 75 houses were built in the 1880s and 1890s. The Mercer Hotel, formerly located at 12th and Howard streets, was another one of his many business interests. He was among the founders of the Omaha Street Railway Company.

At the time of his death in 1907, one Omaha newspaper said his estate was worth $500,000 (over $10 million today). His descendants, through what became the Mercer Management Company, developed much of what is today the Old Market district of Omaha.