Omaha, << OH muh `haw` or OH muh `hah` >> (pop. 486,051; met. area pop. 967,604), is the largest city in Nebraska. It ranks as one of the world’s leading food processing centers. The city also serves as the trading center for eastern Nebraska and western Iowa.
Omaha took its name from the Indigenous (native) Omaha people. In 1854, the Omaha gave most of their hunting grounds in the eastern Nebraska area to the United States government. That same year, the Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company, a land development firm, founded the town of Omaha City. The name of the town was later shortened to Omaha. The company chose the site for settlement because of its location on a bluff at a ferry crossing at one end of the Mormon Trail.
The city
covers 143 square miles (370 square kilometers) of land on the west bank of the Missouri River. The city of Council Bluffs, Iowa, lies across the river and is in the Omaha metropolitan area. The Omaha metropolitan area covers 4,347 square miles (11,259 square kilometers) and consists of Cass, Douglas, Sarpy, Saunders, and Washington counties in Nebraska and Harrison, Mills, and Pottawattamie counties in Iowa.
Omaha’s main business district lies near the Missouri River. In the heart of the downtown area stands the city’s tallest building, the 45-story First National Tower.
People of European descent make up about 65 percent of Omaha’s population. Over 10 percent of the people are African Americans. Hispanic people, who may be of any race, make up about 15 percent. The city also has a small number of Asian Americans and Native Americans.
Economy.
Omaha has hundreds of factories. Food processing ranks as the city’s most important industry. Omaha is one of the chief frozen-food producers in the United States.
Other major Omaha industries include machinery manufacturing, metalworking, printing, publishing, and the manufacture of telephone and electric equipment. The city is a national center for telemarketing companies, which promote and sell products by telephone. Omaha is also an insurance center. A number of insurance firms have their home offices in the city, including Mutual of Omaha, one of the largest insurance companies in the United States.
Railroads provide freight and passenger service to Omaha. Airlines use Eppley Airfield. Bus lines and trucking firms also operate in Omaha. Barge lines help make the city an important Missouri River port. Omaha has one daily newspaper, the Omaha World-Herald.
Education.
Boys Town, a famous community for homeless and underprivileged children, is just west of Omaha (see Boys Town).
Colleges and universities in Omaha include the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Creighton University, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Clarkson College, the College of St. Mary, and Nebraska Methodist College. Bellevue University is in Bellevue, a suburb that lies south of Omaha.
Cultural life and recreation.
The Joslyn Art Museum features works from ancient to modern times, with a special emphasis on European and American art of the 1800’s and 1900’s. The museum is noted for its collection of art of the American West. Other museums include the Omaha Children’s Museum and the Durham Museum, a history museum in a restored railroad station. The city has a symphony orchestra. The Omaha Community Playhouse, which first opened in 1925, presents plays in two theaters.
Omaha has more than 200 parks. The Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, in the southeastern part of the city, attracts many visitors. The zoo’s Lied Jungle is an indoor re-creation of rain forests of Asia, Africa, and South America. Lauritzen Gardens, Omaha’s Botanical Center, is just north of the zoo. Fontenelle Forest, the largest unbroken tract of forestland in Nebraska, lies south of Omaha. 
Every June, top college baseball teams come to Omaha to compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association College World Series. The Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben, a civic organization, sponsors a rodeo and livestock show every September. This organization, whose name is Nebraska spelled backwards, was founded in 1895.
Government.
Omaha has a mayor-council form of government. The voters elect the mayor and the seven council members to four-year terms. Omaha gets most of its income from a property tax and a city sales tax.
History.
Many American Indigenous groups, including the Omaha and the Oto, once hunted buffalo in what is now the Omaha area. The famous expedition headed by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark passed through the area in 1804 on its way to the West.
In 1854, a treaty between the United States government and the Omaha people opened the newly created Nebraska Territory for settlement. The Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company surveyed and laid out the site of Omaha. The firm sold land for $25 per lot. In 1855, the first territorial legislature selected Omaha as the capital. Omaha was incorporated as a city in 1857.
In the late 1850’s, Omaha became an outfitting point for wagon trains headed for the newly discovered gold fields of Colorado. But the city grew slowly and, in 1860, had a population of only 1,183.
Many Nebraskans had opposed the selection of Omaha as the territorial capital. More than half the territory’s people lived south of the Platte River. They felt that the capital should not be north of the Platte, as Omaha is. After Nebraska became a state in 1867, the city of Lincoln was chosen as the new capital. The state government moved to Lincoln, 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of Omaha, in 1868.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln had selected the Council Bluffs area as the starting point of the Union Pacific Railroad. In 1865, the first tracks were laid westward from Omaha. The Union Pacific thus became part of the first U.S. transcontinental rail system, which was completed in 1869. Omaha began to grow rapidly and had 16,083 people by 1870.
During the 1880’s, Omaha developed into an important meat-processing center. The city’s location in a great cattle-raising area and at the heart of a rail network helped this growth. The opening of the Union Stockyards in 1884 hastened the growth. Thousands of immigrants, many from southern and central Europe, worked in Omaha’s meat-packing plants.
In 1898, the Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben organized the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, a fair that attracted more than 21/2 million visitors to Omaha. By 1900, the city had 102,555 people. The population reached 191,601 in 1920, and 223,844 in 1940. The number of factories in Omaha grew from 150 in 1900 to 450 in 1950. In 1948, the U.S. Air Force established the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) at Offutt Air Force Base, near Omaha. The federal government eliminated SAC in 1992 during a reorganization of the Air Force. The base is now the headquarters of the U.S. Strategic Command.
Changes in Omaha during the last half of the 1900’s included conversion of a wholesale fruit and vegetable market south of downtown into a visitor attraction called Old Market. Old Market is a brick-paved district with shops, art galleries, and restaurants. Other projects included the construction of a hotel and several large office buildings in downtown Omaha. The Gene Leahy Mall also was completed. The mall links the city’s business district and the riverfront.
In 2001, construction began on a new convention center and arena on the northeast edge of the downtown area. The convention center and arena opened in 2003.
In 2006, Nebraska passed a law that would have divided Omaha’s public school district into three separate divisions. Each division would have a majority or near-majority of one of three different ethnic groups—Black, white, and Hispanic. The law’s supporters said it would provide more resources for low-income students. Opponents charged that the law amounted to state-sponsored segregation. In 2007, however, the Legislature passed a law intended to keep the district together and to help solve funding and academic performance problems in the schools.
