This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/AQB.2ACI/82.2 Message Board Post: "Nebraska Farmer" magazine January 15, 1999 Stockyards to leave South Omaha after 115 Years by Beverly Todd Nolte , Murray, NE Omaha, Nebraska -- for the last 115 years it has been home to one of the world’s largest and most famous livestock markets. By the end of 1999, this Midwestern community will say good-bye to the landmark operation that helped the city grow from a dusty cow-town to an international leader in the livestock and meat-packing industry. With the land sold out from under it, United Market Services, the company that owns and operates the Omaha Stockyards, is looking for a new location to continue bringing together farmers, ranchers, commission men and meat packers. United Market Services learned it lost its lease Dec. 10, 1997, when Omaha Mayor Hal Daub held a press conference in the Livestock Exchange Building lobby and announced the city would buy the property the stockyards operates on and turn it into a business park. The announcement came as a surprise to Carl Hatcher, operations manager of the stockyards. “It has been a very disappointing and upsetting situation,” Hatcher said. “We’ve been here for 115 years and were given very little consideration. We’re still viable, but the city government has a lot of influence over whether we stay open or close.” City officials say the livestock market was left out because it would not be compatible with the redevelopment plan and is a dying business. “Their numbers are declining. We believe their operation would cease anyhow,” said James Thele, Real Property Manager with the City of Omaha. “When we reached an impasse with the city, we started looking for a new location,” Hatcher said. By early fall, Hatcher hopes to move the livestock market to one of four sites that are under consideration. The sites, two in Iowa and two in Nebraska, have current livestock operations and are within 40 to 50 miles of Omaha. “This is a good location for our Iowa and Nebraska customers and we wanted to maintain it,” Hatcher said. United Market Service tried to negotiate with the city to maintain the stockyard operation by consolidating the facilities from the current 15 acres it operates on to 5-6 acres. The best the city offered was a lease extension to January 1, 2000, when the Omaha stockyards must be fully vacated. By March 31, 1999, the office facilities must move from the Livestock Exchange Building to space across 29th Plaza in the Auto Park. Keeping 3,500 customers updated about the situation is a priority for Hatcher. He assures customers that the stockyards is still an ongoing, viable and profitable business, and that it will continue operating during the move across the street in March and relocation to a permanent site later in the year. Nearly 30 other livestock-related businesses also are relocating, including the USDA’s market news service. The office, which has produced market reports for sellers and buyers since 1917, moved to a new office in Kearney, Nebraska. The City of Omaha and the nonprofit South Omaha Industrial Park Development Corp. took possession of the 57-acre property Sept. 10, 1998. It purchased the property for $900,000 from Canal Capital Corp. in New York. With a price tag of $8.2 million, the redevelopment plan calls for the purchase and demolition of property, which will begin this summer, followed by the development of streets and utilities in 2000. The city expects to begin selling parcels of property in 2001. The only structure that will be saved is 73-year-old Livestock Exchange Building. Thele says the city is working with the Nebraska Historical Society and the National Parks Service to restore the building as a National Historic Site. The Livestock Exchange Building is the last reminder of the golden days when the Omaha Stockyards was the jewel in Omaha’s crown. It was built by Peter Kiewit and Sons and was the company’s first $1,000,000 project. When the Livestock Exchange Building opened its double set of brass doors in 1926, seven floors were dedicated to 60 commission firms and eight order buyers. Fitted with mahogany, the Stockyards National Bank took its place on the second floor. Hand- painted murals featuring farm and ranch scenes ringed the cafeteria. By 1950, more than 1,000 people a day crossed the Italian marbled lobby. The building boasted a first-aid room with full-time physician, a clothing store, barber shop, cleaners, a market newspaper and two radio studios. Market reports were broadcast live from KFAB’s studio daily. A soda fountain, telegraph office and a cigar stand, that sold more than 1,500 cigars a day, also served the livestock industry. The tenth-floor ballroom was the scene of the 1955 annual dinner celebration of the Union Stock Yards Company (the founding company) when it marked the first of 18 consecutive years that the Omaha Livestock Market held the title of the world’s largest livestock market. From 1955 to 1973, a billboard on the edge of the stockyards proclaimed “Omaha, the largest livestock market and meat packing center in the nation.” It’s a sign that would have put a smile of the face of founder Alexander “Alec” Hamilton Swan who had the vision to transform the South Omaha whistle-stop for livestock on its way east into a thriving city and leading center for the livestock market and meat-packing industry. In 1882, this Wyoming cattle baron, along with six Omaha businessmen, put together the capital and land and formed the Union Stockyards Company of Omaha. The entranapuners included John A. Creighton, whose family founded Creighton University in Omaha. At the time, cattle were shipped to market in Chicago. Swan was looking for a closer market. He realized Omaha’s railroad lines, abundant water and grain supplies and location in the middle of cattle country could make it a leading livestock market. By 1883, the new business had accumulated nearly 2,000 acres of land – 200 acres were set aside for stockyards and packing house, leaving 1,800 acres for the development of South Omaha. The first shipment of 531 cattle arrived August 13, 1884, from Medicine Bow, Wyoming, in 25 rail cars. Besides cattle, hogs, sheep, buffalo, deer, horses, mules and chickens were sold on the market in early years. Growth came phenomenally quick to the livestock market, packing houses and community. By 1888, the “big four” packing companies – Hammond’s, Fowler Brothers, Swift and Company, and Armour-Cudahy – were slaughtering more than 1 million cattle, hogs and sheep each year. By 1892 the packing plants employed 5,000 people in “Packingtown.” And in 1897 Armour’s South Omaha plant was the nation’s largest.By 1934, the big four included Armour, Cudahy, Swift and Wilson. In 1955, Omaha was the only city in the world where Armour, Swift, Cudahy and Wilson each slaughtered all three types of animals. And it was Armour who supplied the American fighting forces and their allies with canned meat during World War II. South Omaha’s 150 residents of 1885 quickly grew to 8,000 people by 1890. The first businesses were 15 saloons; churches, schools, hotels, general stores, blacksmiths and butcher shops soon flourished in South Omaha. By 1908, 35,000 people lived in South Omaha with one-fourth employed by the stockyards or packing houses. In 1916, Omaha became the 16th largest city in the nation with the annexation of South Omaha. The city and the stockyards worked together to improve conditions for the people who lived and worked there. The famous “O” Street viaduct took foot and car traffic up and over the dangerous rail road tracks was one joint improvement. Two second-hand bridges – one from Idaho and the other from Wyoming – were purchased from railroads and spliced together to span the rail yards. The narrow bridge still ferries traffic from “O” Street into the stockyards. Redevelopment plans call for its demolition. According to the Omaha Daily Journal-Stockman of June 6, 1957, fully one-half of Omaha was employed in some facet of the livestock industry. And the Omaha Chamber of Commerce said “Livestock is Omaha’s lifeblood.” The claim didn’t seem an exaggeration, as food processing had become Omaha’s number one industry, employing 13,000 people. By 1959, the Omaha World Herald declared the stockyards “the backbone of Omaha’s economy ever since the first steer trotted into its pens in 1884.” The growing industry called for expanded and improved facilities. The stockyards were under constant renovation. At the turn of the century, new pens with concrete floors and watering troughs were added. New scale houses were built. Elevated catwalks above the pens offered a better view of livestock without having to thread through the maze of pens. A sheep barn was rebuilt to hold 100,000 animals. In 1914, the new two-block horse and mule barn was hailed as “the largest and best single barn in the world.” It housed the largest ranch horse market in the world drawing European nations that outfited their armies with American horses. In 1910, 20,000 animals arrived at the market each day from farms and ranches in 20 states (mainly Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Utah and South Dakota) and Canada, and 10 slaughtering house/packing plants were in operation. “Floggers” drove cattle, hogs and sheep through the alleys and great maze of pens. It was said that if all the cattle, hogs and sheep that came in 1950 were lined up, the whole column, walking by a certain point at the rate of one animal per 12 seconds, would take almost two years of constant marching to get the last animal past the point. It was calculated that the stockyards did $4,000 of business every minute. The livestock business overall was so large that the profits from the manure alone rivaled the value of the Florida citrus crop in 1951 (South Omaha Sun, October 18, 1951). The 1960s brought change to the livestock market and packing industry. Cudahy Packing Company stopped production at its South Omaha plant in 1967. The following year Armour and Company, then Swift, followed suit. In 1968, receipts and revenue were down for the Union Stockyards Company. The industry faced major changes in the way livestock were marketed from the central location of a public livestock market to “direct selling” from the feedlot. Smaller, decentralized packers were putting livestock buyers on the road. Smaller farmer-feeders were soon competing with the large feedyards that found benefits in selling direct to the packers. More change awaited the Union Stockyards Company in 1973. It lost its title as the nation’s largest livestock market. Then, the 89-year-old company was sold. It would change hands two more times in the next 15 years. United Market Service has owned the company since 1989. “While our numbers have dwindled, we still provided a much needed service,” says Hatcher, who oversaw the marketing of 197,575 animals in 1997. “We offer a service where people can bring livestock -- where sellers can get a competitive bid and buyers can see a large number of livestock. We are the starting point for negotiations.” Hatcher, who began working for the stockyards in 1955 while in high school, has seen the Omaha Stockyards through extreme change. He believes his company will continue to be a player in the livestock market of the next century by mixing business with tradition. “This is the only business in the world where millions of dollars change hands only by a gentleman’s agreement,” Hatcher says. “It has worked for 115 years and is still working today.” ### Reference: Historical data from:“A Century of Marketing Commemorative Book,” Omaha Stockyards 1884-1984, published by United Stockyards Corp. Material obtained from the Nebraska State Historical Society.