By the turn of the century the historic Omaha stockyards will be gone from the site it’s operated at for 114 years, leaving an uncertain future for one of Omaha’s oldest active businesses. The move, prompted by a city-sponsored redevelopment project, will mark the end of a once mighty enterprise built on brains, brawn, guts and ambition. After surviving ownership changes, world wars and wild economic swings, the stockyards will finally succumb to changing times and attitudes.
A throwback to an earlier era, the stockyards was a male-dominated arena where high finance met Midwestern hospitality. Where a man’s word was his bond and an honest day’s work his measure. Its departure will close a rich, muscular chapter in Omaha’s working life — one whose like may not be seen again. One where men moved a constant flow of animals through a maze of tracks, chutes, alleys and pens spanning 200-plus acres.
“This was a huge, huge operation. A big mammoth place. At one time we employed 350 to 400 people. We stretched from the railroad yards at about 26th Street clear up to 36th Street. We were beyond ‘L’ Street to the north and beyond Gomez Avenue to the south. We ran crews 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week. There was always something going on. At times you never thought you had enough help with all the pens and animals to maintain,” said Carl Hatcher, a 43-year veteran at the yards and current manager of the Omaha Livestock Market.
The stockyards teemed with activity its first 100 years. In 1955 Omaha overtook Chicago as the nation’s largest livestock market and meatpacking center, a position it held until 1973.
Today, the stockyards is but a shell of its former self. With receipts in steady decline for three decades, it’s systematically shrunk operations to the present 15 acres, dramatically scaled back the market schedule and severely downsized the workforce. Abandoned pens and dilapidated buildings stand as forlorn reminders of its former greatness.
“We’re not the big yards we used to be,” Hatcher, 60, said. “It’s not a thriving business the way it used to be. The only way we’ve been able to keep in business is to reduce the facility in proportion to the reduced demand in the industry.”
Those, like Hatcher, who recall the glory years know there can never be a return to the daily spectacle along “L” Street when livestock-laden trucks arriving from points near and far lined-up in a procession running from 36th to 60th, waiting to unload their mooing, squealing, bleating cargo.
“It was a sight to see,” said the City of Omaha’s official historian, Jean Dunbar, who saw the epic lines of trucks with his own eyes.