Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha has served as a gateway between the eastern and western United States since its founding. The first European settlers in the Omaha area came as fur traders and missionaries from eastern states. Bellevue, just south of present day Omaha, started as a furtrading post in 1822. The U.S. Indian Agency and missionaries took over the trading post in the 1830s and remained until the 1850s, when the government relocated the Native Americans this agency served. Mormons used a campsite just north of present-day Omaha as one of their winter quarters in the 1840s, but had abandoned it by the early 1850s.

In 1854, Council Bluffs, Iowa, boosters published the Omaha Arrow, hoping to draw people to the new settlement of Omaha, located on the western bank of the Missouri River. They planned the new city for industrial development, land speculation, and as a transportation hub for river shipping and railroad expansion west. Members of the Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company made their first objective the acquisition of the territorial capital. Their goals lay in controlling urban power rather than agricultural influence in Nebraska. In 1855, Omaha became the territorial capital and by 1857 nearly 2,000 people had settled in the community.

A conflict over establishing the seat of government led to a distinct divide in the new territory. People living in Omaha, north of the Platte River, came to be called “North Platters.” Those living south of the Platte and around the Lincoln area were called “South Platters.” Since most of the territorial legislators spent their time in Council Bluffs, they lobbied for Omaha—which was right across the river—as the state capital. Bribery, gerrymandering, and political partisanship kept the capital in Omaha until 1867. But in 1868 politicians succeeded in moving the state capital to Lincoln, a small town located near salt flats in Lancaster County. The Burlington Railroad reached Lincoln by 1870, and businesses boomed. New settlers soon began arriving in the new political center from New England, Illinois, Ohio, and Iowa. By 1880, 13,000 people lived in the city. Lincoln also benefited from the 1862 Morrill Land-Grant Act, and the establishment of the agricultural college near the northeast corner of the town in 1869. But Lincoln struggled to attract any substantial industries other than government offices and the university. Businessmen viewed Omaha as the best location considering transportation and labor logistics. Though they fought the capital move initially, city leaders soon realized Omaha's success would rest on regional economic development and preeminence.

Emigrants, farmers, and other travelers used Omaha as an outfitting point during the push west for gold and land in Oregon throughout the 1850s and 1860s. By 1859, grocery and hardware stores did several thousand dollars’ worth of business each day. Steamboats arrived from St. Louis daily, carrying immigrants from Europe and migrants from the East. In 1860, telegraph lines linked Omaha to the East Coast, and the following year, lines reached the West Coast, firmly establishing Omaha as a communication center for the Midwest.

The Homestead Act and Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 opened Nebraska's central and western lands to new settlement. Settlers poured in from the eastern United States, Sweden, Germany, England, Ireland, and the Bohemian countries. Railroad companies promoted rural settlement because they wanted farming communities to ship crops on their freight lines and new settlers to buy their government land grants.

...