He's credited with developing the area around 25th and Marcy. Chuck Martens with Forgotten Omaha says Vincent Chiodo was a self-made man. He used his money to build better homes for Italian immigrants. Chiodo brought over Italian stone masons and used $5,000 worth of the old Douglas County Courthouse to build the Lancaster building.

The white columns and tan mason stones are from that 1885 building. It's the same year Chiodo arrived from Italy. He would become Omaha's first Italian millionaire. But life had its struggles. "His life was full of tragedies, one after another," says Martens. "His oldest son died in the house, no cause of death was listed. That was a big setback for him."