Omaha

Omaha, city, United States

Omaha (ō`məhä, –hô), city (1990 pop. 335,795), seat of Douglas co., E Nebr., on the west bank of the Missouri River; inc. 1857. The largest city in the state, it is a busy port of entry and a major transportation center. It is also one of the largest livestock markets and meat-processing centers in the world and a market for agricultural products. Besides food processing, the city's industries include the manufacture of farm machinery, fertilizers, electronic components, insecticides, chemicals, and paint. Omaha is also the home of many insurance and telecommunications companies, and a center for medical treatment and research.

Founded when the Nebraska Territory was opened to settlement in 1854, it grew as a supply point for westward migration and became a thriving transportation and industrial center after the arrival of the railroad in 1869. It was the territorial capital from 1855 to 1867. A world's fair, the Trans-Mississippi and International Exhibition, was held there in 1898.

The city has noted park and school systems and is the seat of Creighton Univ., the Univ. of Nebraska at Omaha, and the College of St. Mary. Of interest are the Joslyn Art Museum, an aerospace museum, a Mormon cemetery, and Fontenelle Forest. Fort Omaha (built 1868) serves as headquarters of the naval reserve training command. Offutt Air Force Base, south of the city, was the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) from 1946 to 1992, when SAC was abolished; the interservice Strategic Command is now based there. Boys Town is to the west of the city.

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Omaha, indigenous people of North America

Omaha (ō`məhä, –hô), Native Americans whose language belongs to the Siouan branch of the Hokan-Siouan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). They, with the Ponca, migrated from the Ohio valley to the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi rivers and from there to Iowa. At the mouth of the Niobrara River in Nebraska they separated from the Ponca. The Omaha moved farther up the Missouri River, but after an outbreak (1802) of smallpox, which considerably reduced their population, they moved to NE Nebraska. A typical tribe of the Plains area, they lived in earth lodges in the winter and tepees in the summer. They warred intermittently against the Sioux. In 1854 the Omaha ceded all their lands W of the Missouri River to the United States and moved to Dakota co., Nebr. In 1865 they sold part of their reservation to the United States for the use of the Winnebago. An act of 1882 granted the Omaha the right to own land individually; some continued to live on the Omaha Reservation in NE Nebraska. In 1990 there were over 4,000 Omaha in the United States.

Bibliography

See A. Fletcher, A Study of Omaha Indian Music (1893); A. Fletcher and F. La Flesche, The Omaha Tribe (1907); R. F. Fortune, Omaha Secret Societies (1932).

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Omaha

City (pop., 2000: 390,007), eastern Nebraska, U.S., on the Missouri River, north of its junction with the Platte River. The city's name, meaning “upstream people,” referred to the Omaha Indians. Omaha was founded in 1854 and incorporated as a city in 1857. In 1863 it became the starting point for the Union Pacific Railroad Co.'s first transcontinental railroad and soon grew into a centre of trade and industry. The largest city in the state, it is a major livestock and grain market, as well as a railroad, meat-packing, and insurance centre. It is home to the University of Nebraska and the Joslyn Art Museum.