Economy of Omaha, Nebraska

In the years after the founding of Omaha, the city's economy grew in cycles. Early success as a transportation hub drew a variety of economic sectors to the downtown area. The early warehousing area was located next to the Missouri River, drawings good from steamboats coming upriver from Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri, as well as points east. The Union Pacific Railroad has been headquartered in Omaha since its inception, eventually bringing the meatpacking, stockyard, and regional brewing companies to the city. The American Smelting and Refining Company owned a large plant on the Omaha riverfront from 1881 into the 1990s, when the Environmental Protection Agency forced it to close. Omaha has a long history of labor unrest and conflict between management and workers. As a long-time open shop the city gained the reputation for actively breaking unions; however, with the loss of large-scale railroad operations and meat production, the labor-driven protests, rioting and civil unrest of the past appears to be gone. Wholesaling and manufacturing In 1870 Omaha began its role as a wholesale jobbing center for the United States. The wholesale jobber purchased goods directly from the manufacturer, transported these goods via the railroads, and sold them directly to small businesses through traveling salesmen. Omaha jobbers handled a wide variety of wholesale products along the Great Platte River Road and beyond, including groceries, dry goods, hardware, fruits, paper, and liquor. The city created a market house and a food-oriented warehousing district to meet the needs of this sector of the economy. Omaha earned its nickname, the "Gateway to the West", because of its central location as a transportation hub for the United States in the middle and late 19th century. Emigrants, gold seekers, Mormons, freighters, Native Americans, speculators and land sharks all contributed. The Omaha Claim Club was an early land claim seller, court, jury and enforcement group. Jobbers Canyon grew as a warehousing center as carriage factories, wholesale houses, and barbed wire factories, along with Downtown Omaha department stores such as Brandeis and hotels such as Hotel Fontenelle. The city's breweries, brickyards, iron works, flour mills, and the Union Pacific headquarters caused the city to swell rapidly between the 1880s and the 1920s. The "Big Four" local breweries in Omaha were the Storz, Krug, Willow Springs and Metz breweries. Businesses Warehousing and manufacturing operations out of Omaha from its founding through the 1920s include the Western Bridge and Construction Company. Other important businesses included the Byron Reed Company and the N.P. Dodge Company. Stockyards and meatpacking The meatpacking industry, built in conjunction with the Omaha Stockyards, started to grow in the 1890s, and provided financial strength to the city through the 1970s. A fierce rival of Chicago's Union Stock Yards, the Omaha Stockyards were third in the nation for production by 1890. The "Big Four" meat packers during this time were Armour, Wilson, Cudahy, and Swift. There were several breweries established throughout the city during this period. In 1947 they were second only to Chicago in worldwide ratings. Omaha overtook Chicago as the U.S.'s largest livestock market and meat packing industry center in 1955, a title which it held until 1971. The 116-year-old institution closed in 1999. Businesses There were several small-scale meatpacking operations in Omaha during this period. Large plants in Omaha included Armour, Cudahy, Swift and Morris, along with several smaller companies. All together they employed over 13,000 men by the 1950s. Transportation The Missouri River provided the initial source of revenue for young Omaha, as fur trappers such as Manuel Lisa used the area to build their inland empires with local Native American tribes. As steamboats started pouring in goods manufactured in the Eastern United States, thousands of tons of goods came through the city. However, the problem of transporting materials for the growing Midwestern United States needed to be addressed, which luckily opened the doorways to the city's major growth engine in its earliest years. The second period of growth in Omaha, from approximately 1865 through the 1880s, is attributed solely to the city's railroad connections, which drew almost all significant rail traffic from the Pacific Northwest through the area. By the 1870s, Omaha had seven major rail lines. Major bus lines and airlines have traveled through the city for almost 100 years. Several major highways and bridges come into the city as well. Businesspeople Early businesspeople who were important to the growth and development of the city include a variety of bankers, investors, promoters, lawyers, and entrepreneurs. Omaha is said to have been founded by William D. Brown, the entrepreneur behind the Lone Tree Ferry which brought settlers across from Council Bluffs, Iowa. Alfred D. Jones was a surveyor and lawyer who first platted the city. Later the brothers Edward and John A. Creighton traveled west from their native Ohio planting telegraph wires along the way. Their contributions to the city's growth were innumerable, with varied backgrounds in banking, investing and philanthropy. Similarly, the Kountze family's impact on the city was immense. Augustus and his brother Herman founded the bank that became the First National Bank of Omaha, which today is the largest independent bank in the U.S., and is still headquartered in Omaha. Gilbert Hitchcock and Edward Rosewater were among the many influential newspaper editors in the city, founding empires that promoted, molded and drove economic development. Frederick Krug, Frederick Metz and Gottlieb Storz were all early beer brewers, with counterparts in the meatpacking industry included Edward Cudahy, Sr. among others. ==Current economic sectors and industries==