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Famous Cattle Towns

South Omaha: The Union Stockyards and the Packing Town That Led the Nation

The Nebraska stockyard district that fed the nation's packers for more than a century.

How South Omaha became a stockyard town

South Omaha began as farmland that cattlemen and businessmen turned into a stop for livestock headed east. According to the National Park Service page on the Livestock Exchange Building, they founded the Union Stockyard Company in 1883 so animals could be penned on their way to Chicago. The original Livestock Exchange Building followed in 1885. Packing plants soon arrived, and the district earned the nickname Magic City.

The first shipment, according to Wikipedia's article on the Union Stockyards, was 531 longhorn cattle from Medicine Bow, Wyoming, in 1884. The original site covered more than 260 acres, with pens on nearly 200 of them.

The packers and the numbers

Packers in South Omaha processed more than a million cattle, hogs and sheep a year by around 1888, and by 1890 the market ranked third in the nation. By 1892 the packing plants employed about 5,000 people. In 1910, about 20,000 animals a day arrived from farms and ranches in 20 states, and ten slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants were running.

The roster of big firms shifted over time. Wikipedia lists a different group in 1888 than in 1934, when the Big Four were Armour, Cudahy, Swift and Wilson. The Nebraska Studies site names Armour, Cudahy, Morris and Swift, so sources differ on which fourth packer to count. Armour built a new facility in 1915 that was described as one of the largest in the region.

What Made It Work

South Omaha's rise depended on connecting western range cattle to eastern packers at a point the railroads already served. The yards started as a way station and became a destination once packers decided to build beside the pens.

The record also shows what ended it. As refrigerated railcars made it practical to ship carcasses rather than live animals, the logic of centralized stockyards weakened.

  • Cattlemen and businessmen organized the Union Stockyard Company in 1883, putting capital behind a market before the packers arrived.
  • Packers such as Armour, Cudahy and Swift built plants beside the yards, which kept animals, labor and processing in one place.
  • The market drew livestock from 20 states by 1910, which gave packers dependable volume.
  • A grand Livestock Exchange Building, completed in 1926, housed offices, a bank and meeting space for the trade.
  • In the early twentieth century, refrigerated railcars made shipping carcasses cheaper than live cattle, and railroads that had invested in corrals resisted the change.
  • Reform and regulation reshaped the industry after 1906, when public alarm over meatpacking led Congress to pass inspection laws.

The Jungle, inspection and a changing industry

In 1906, Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, and public outrage over packinghouse conditions led Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drugs Act. A 1909 photograph shows federal inspection stamps being applied to hogs in South Omaha, a sign of how quickly oversight reached the packing towns. The Nebraska Studies page on stockyards and packing houses adds that live cattle took up more railcar space, lost weight in transit and sometimes injured one another, and that shipping carcasses avoided paying freight on hooves, bone and horn.

South Omaha merged with the city of Omaha in 1915, the same year Armour opened its large new facility.

The 1955 peak and the long decline

Wikipedia reports that the market was second only to Chicago in the world by 1947 and overtook Chicago as the nation's largest livestock market and meatpacking center in 1955. The National Park Service agrees that in 1955 South Omaha's stockyards surpassed Chicago's. In the 1940s four national packers operated there: Armour, Cudahy, Swift and Wilson.

Change came fast. Market shifts in the 1960s led three of the largest packing companies to close, and the last major packing house closed by 1976. The stockyards were sold to Canal Capital Corporation in 1973 and to United Marketing Services in 1989. The City of Omaha bought land in 1996 and condemned most of the facilities. In 1997 the yards still handled 197,575 animals, but they closed in 1999 after 116 years of operation.

The Livestock Exchange Building and what to see today

The Livestock Exchange Building at 4920 South 30th Street was designed by Omaha architect George Prinz and completed in May 1926. It is an eleven-story, H-shaped brick building that blends Romanesque and Italian Renaissance Revival styles, and it holds National Register and Omaha Local Landmark status. A 2005 renovation turned it into more than one hundred apartments and two ballrooms.

Readers curious about how cattle moved from range to plate can browse the ranching pages on farm.FM, or read a farm.FM story about the Omaha stockyards for more on packing-town life.

Timeline

  1. 1883Union Stockyard Company founded
  2. 1884First shipment of 531 longhorn cattle arrives from Wyoming
  3. 1885Original Livestock Exchange Building built
  4. 1906Meat Inspection Act passed after The Jungle
  5. 1915South Omaha merges with Omaha; Armour opens large new facility
  6. 1926New Livestock Exchange Building completed
  7. 1955Overtakes Chicago as the nation's largest stockyard
  8. 1999Stockyards close after 116 years

Frequently asked questions

When did the South Omaha stockyards open?

Cattlemen and businessmen founded the Union Stockyard Company in 1883, and the first shipment of 531 longhorn cattle from Wyoming arrived in 1884.

Did South Omaha beat Chicago?

Yes. The National Park Service and Wikipedia both report that in 1955 South Omaha's stockyards surpassed Chicago's as the nation's largest stockyard and meat processing center.

Which packers worked in South Omaha?

The Big Four in the 1930s and 1940s were Armour, Cudahy, Swift and Wilson. Some sources also name Morris, so accounts differ on the exact lineup.

When did the Omaha stockyards close?

The stockyards closed in 1999 after 116 years. The last major packing house had closed by 1976.

Sources and further reading

Profiles are compiled from public sources and reviewed against them. See our editorial policy to suggest a correction.

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