Boys Town
National Historic Landmark District; Incorporated Village And Headquarters Of Boys Town (Father Flanagan'S Boys' Home) · Boys Town, Nebraska
Boys Town is both an incorporated village and a working campus on the western edge of Omaha, the home and headquarters of the child-care organisation that Father Edward J. Flanagan, an Irish-born Catholic priest, started in a rented house in downtown Omaha in December 1917 with a handful of boys. He moved the home to a farm west of the city in 1921, and the 1938 film Boys Town, with Spencer Tracy as Flanagan and Mickey Rooney as a hard-case boy, made the name known across the country. The historic core is a National Historic Landmark district. Visitors come for the Hall of History, Father Flanagan's restored house, the Dowd Memorial Chapel where he is buried, the Two Brothers statue behind the words He ain't heavy, Father, he's m' brother, and the Leon Myers Stamp Center with its giant ball of stamps. It is a real place where children live and go to school, not a theme park, so visitors keep to the public sites and leave the family homes alone. Most people need two to three hours, and admission to the public sites has usually been free.
14100 Crawford Street, Boys Town, Nebraska, 68010, United States
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The typical pattern: the Visitor Center and Hall of History open daily in daytime hours, roughly 9 or 10 am to 4 or 5 pm, sometimes shorter on Sundays and in winter; Father Flanagan's House and the stamp centre keep similar or shorter hours; the grounds and statues can be seen whenever the campus is open to visitors. The chapels follow their service schedules. The traps that ruin a day are arriving on a major holiday such as Christmas, Easter or Thanksgiving when buildings may be closed, turning up after about 4 pm when the museum is shutting, and finding Father Flanagan's House closed for an event. Confirm current times before relying on them.