Omaha is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. Omaha had a population of 486,051 at the 2020 census, and with a 2025 population estimate of 488,797, it is the 42nd-most populous U.S. city. The eight-county Omaha–Council Bluffs metropolitan area extending into Iowa has approximately 1 million residents, the 55th-largest metropolitan area in the U.S. It is the county seat of Douglas County.
Omaha's pioneer period began in 1854, when the city was founded along the Missouri River by speculators from neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa. It originally comprised a crossing called Lone Tree Ferry earning the city its nickname, the "Gateway to the West". Omaha introduced this new West to the world in 1898, when it played host to the World's Fair, dubbed the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. During the 19th century, Omaha's central location in the United States spurred the city to become an important national transportation hub. Throughout the rest of the 19th century, the transportation and jobbing sectors were important in the city, along with its railroads and breweries. In the 20th century, the Omaha Stockyards, once the world's largest, and its meatpacking plants gained international prominence.
Omaha is home to the headquarters of four Fortune 500 companies: Berkshire Hathaway, Kiewit Corporation, Mutual of Omaha, and Union Pacific Corporation.Boettcher, Ross. "Mutual returns to Fortune 500". Omaha World-Herald. April 16, 2010. Retrieved April 28, 2010. Other companies headquartered in the city include First National Bank of Omaha, Gallup, Inc., Green Plains, Intrado, Valmont Industries, Werner Enterprises, WoodmenLife, and three of the nation's ten largest architecture and engineering firms (DLR Group, HDR, Inc., and Leo A Daly). Notable cultural institutions include the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, Old Market, Durham Museum, Lauritzen Gardens, and the annual College World Series. Modern Omaha inventions include the Reuben sandwich; cake mix, developed by Duncan Hines; center-pivot irrigation; Raisin Bran; the first ski lift in the U.S.; the Top 40 radio format, which was first used in the U.S. at KOWH Radio; and the TV dinner.
History
Various Native American tribes had lived in the land that became Omaha since the 17th century, including the Omaha and Ponca, Dhegihan-Siouan language people who had originated in the lower Ohio River valley and migrated west by the early 17th century; Pawnee, Otoe, Missouria, and Iowa. The word Omaha ( or ) in the Omaha language means 'Upstream People' or 'Against the Current'.
In 1804 the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed the riverbanks where the city of Omaha would be built. Between July 30 and August 3, 1804, members of the expedition, including Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, met with Oto and Missouria tribal leaders at the Council Bluff at a point about north of present-day Omaha.(1987) "Fort Atkinson Chronology", NEBRASKAland Magazine. p. 34–35. Immediately south of that area, Americans built several fur trading outposts in succeeding years, including Fort Lisa in 1812;Morton, J. S., Watkins, A. and Miller, G.L. (1911) "Fur trade", Illustrated History of Nebraska: A History of Nebraska from the Earliest Explorations of the Trans-Mississippi Region, with Steel Engravings, Photogravures, Copper Plates, Maps and Tables. Western Publishing and Engraving Company. p. 53. Fort Atkinson in 1819;, Nebraska State Historical Society. Retrieved 5/28/08. Cabanné's Trading Post, built in 1822, and Fontenelle's Post in 1823, in what became Bellevue.Andreas, A.T. (1882) "Washington County" , History of the State of Nebraska. Chicago: Western Historical Company. Retrieved 4/28/08. There was fierce competition among fur traders until John Jacob Astor created the monopoly of the American Fur Company. The Mormons built a town called Cutler's Park in the area in 1846. While it was temporary, the settlement provided the basis for further development.Larsen, L. H. and Cotrell, B. J. (1997) The Gate City: A history of Omaha . University of Nebraska Press. p. 6.
Through 26 separate treaties with the United States federal government, Native American tribes in Nebraska gradually ceded the lands that now make up the state. The treaty and cession involving the Omaha area occurred in 1854 when the Omaha Tribe ceded most of east-central Nebraska.Royce, C.C. (1899) "Indian Land Cessions in the United States", in Powell, J.W. 18th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1896–97, Part 2, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. Logan Fontenelle, an interpreter for the Omaha and signatory to the 1854 treaty, played an essential role in those proceedings.
Pioneer Omaha Before it was legal to claim land in Indian Country, William D. Brown operated the Lone Tree Ferry that brought settlers from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to the area that became Omaha. Brown is generally credited as having the first vision for a city where Omaha now sits.Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration. (1970) Nebraska: A Guide to the Cornhusker State . Nebraska State Historical Society. p. 241. The passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854 was presaged by the staking out of claims around the area to become Omaha by residents from neighboring Council Bluffs. On July 4, 1854, the city was informally established at a picnic on Capital Hill, current site of Omaha Central High School.Hickey, D. R., Wunder, S. A. and Wunder, J. R. (2007) Nebraska Moments: New Edition . University of Nebraska Press. p. 147. Soon after, the Omaha Claim Club was formed to provide vigilante justice for claim jumpers and others who infringed on the land of many of the city's founding fathers.Sheldon, A.E. (1904) "Chapter VII: Nebraska Territory", Semi-Centennial History of Nebraska . Lincoln, Nebraska: Lemon Publishing. p. 58. Some of this land, which now wraps around Downtown Omaha, was later used to entice Nebraska Territorial legislators to an area called Scriptown.Andreas, A.T. (1882) "Douglas County", History of the State of Nebraska. Chicago: Western Historical Company. p. 841. The Territorial capitol was in Omaha, but when Nebraska became a state in 1867, the capital was relocated to Lincoln, southwest of Omaha. Nebraska State Historical Society. Retrieved 12/14/08. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled against numerous landowners whose violent actions were condemned in Baker v. Morton.Baumann, L. Martin, C., Simpson, S. (1990) Omaha's Historic Prospect Hill Cemetery: A History of Prospect Hill Cemetery with Biographical Notes on Over 1400 People Interred Therein. Prospect Hill Cemetery Historical Development Foundation.
Many of Omaha's founding figures stayed at the Douglas House or the Cozzens House Hotel.Federal Writers' Project. (1939) Nebraska. Nebraska State Historical Society. p. 239. Dodge Street was important early in the city's early commercial history; North 24th Street and South 24th Street also developed independently as business districts. Early pioneers were buried in Prospect Hill Cemetery and Cedar Hill Cemetery.Nebraska Territory Legislative Assembly. (1858) House Journal of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Nebraska. Volume 5. p. 113. Cedar Hill closed in the 1860s and its graves were moved to Prospect Hill, where pioneers were later joined by soldiers from Fort Omaha, African Americans and early European immigrants.Historic Prospect Hill – Omaha's Pioneer Cemetery . Nebraska Department of Education. Retrieved 7/7/07. There are several other historical cemeteries in Omaha, historical Jewish synagogues and historical Christian churches dating from the pioneer era, as well. Two sculpture parks, Pioneer Courage and Spirit of Nebraska's Wilderness and The Transcontinental Railroad, celebrate the city's pioneering history.Sculpture Parks . Retrieved 6/22/15.
19th century
The economy of Omaha boomed and busted through its early years. In 1858, the Omaha Daily Republican was founded by the Omaha Printing Company (rebranded Aradius Group, 2016), it was Nebraska's first regional newspaper–founded before Nebraska claimed statehood. Omaha was a stopping point for settlers and prospectors heading west, either overland or by the Missouri River. The steamboat Bertrand sank north of Omaha on its way to the goldfields in 1865. Its massive collection of artifacts is on display at the nearby Desoto National Wildlife Refuge. The jobbing and wholesaling district brought new jobs, followed by the railroads and the stockyards.Federal Writers' Project. (1939) Nebraska: A guide to the Cornhusker state. Nebraska State Historical Society. p. 219–232. Groundbreaking for the First transcontinental railroad in 1863, provided an essential developmental boom for the city.Larsen, L.H. and Cottrell, B.J. (1997) The Gate City: A history of Omaha. University of Nebraska Press. p. 64. In 1862, the U.S. Congress allowed the Union Pacific Railroad to begin building westward railways;Wishart, D.J. (2004) Encyclopedia of the Great Plains . University of Nebraska Press. p. 209. in January 1866 it commenced construction out of Omaha.A History of Travel in America, by Seymour Dunbar, Bobbs-Merrill Company (1915), pg. 1350; (Retrieved 9/25/08)
The Union Stockyards, another important part of the city's development, were founded in South Omaha in 1883.Larsen, L. and Cottrell, B.J. (1997) The Gate City: A history of Omaha. University of Nebraska Press. p. 73 Within 20 years, Omaha had four of the five major meatpacking companies in the United States. By the 1950s, half the city's workforce was employed in meatpacking and processing. Meatpacking, jobbing and railroads were responsible for most of the growth in the city from the late 19th century through the early decades of the 20th century.Larsen, L.H. and Cottrell, B.J. (1997) The Gate City: A history of Omaha. University of Nebraska Press. p. 142.
Immigrants soon created ethnic enclaves throughout the city, including Irish in Sheelytown in South Omaha; Germans in the Near North Side, joined by the European Jews and black migrants from the South; and Little Italy and Little Bohemia in South Omaha.Taylor, Q. (1999) In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West . W. W. Norton & Company. p. 204. Beginning in the late 19th century, Omaha's upper class lived in posh enclaves throughout the city, including the south and north Gold Coast neighborhoods, Bemis Park, Kountze Place, Field Club and throughout Midtown Omaha. They traveled the city's sprawling park system on boulevards designed by renowned landscape architect Horace Cleveland.Morton, J.S. and Watkins, A. (1918) "Chapter XXXV: Greater Omaha", History of Nebraska: From the Earliest Explorations of the Trans-Mississippi Region. Lincoln, Nebraska: Western Publishing and Engraving Company. p. 831. The Omaha Horse Railway first carried passengers throughout the city, as did the later Omaha Cable Tramway Company and several similar companies. In 1888, the Omaha and Council Bluffs Railway and Bridge Company built the Douglas Street Bridge, the first pedestrian and wagon bridge between Omaha and Council Bluffs.United States Army Corps of Engineers. (1888) Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers to the Secretary of War for the Year . GPO. p. 309. Retrieved 4/11/08.