Beef State 5 of 6

The Forces of Change: South Omaha


Source: Nebraska State Historical Society

After World War II, South Omaha’s stockyards and packing houses were caught up in a postwar hunger for beef. In 1949, the average American consumed 144 pounds of meat per year, and in 1950, that number jumped to 160 pounds per year. That is nearly half a pound a day for every man, woman, and child. And the American Meat Institute reported in 1950 that meat constituted 24% of a family’s food budget. This was the beginning of the baby boom. There were a lot of families having babies out there!

Since the 1920s, the major meatpackers (Swift, Armour, Cudahy, and Wilson, called the "Big Four") held a near monopoly on beef production. And Omaha’s Union Stockyards sprawled over two hundred acres and was a city unto itself. The dominance of the Big Four and pre-eminence of the stockyards would eventually fade away. Video


World's Largest Meatpacking Center, 1955
Source: Nebraska State Historical Society


In 1956, Omaha beat out Chicago as the largest meat producing city in the world. That year, too, for the first time, Nebraska graced its automobile license plates with "Beef State". It was also the year that the Interstate Highway System was born. More and more, cattle were brought to the yards by truck, gradually eroding the industry’s dependence on rail transportation.
Read more about it:
Union Stockyards, Omaha . . .
The World’s No. 1 Livestock Market

Nebraska Farmer
February 4, 1956
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or the picture for a closer look.

Mag Me!Aerial view of the Omaha Stockyards
Source: Nebraska State Historical Society


Armour Co. Strikers in the South Omaha Packing District, 1948
Source: Omaha World-Herald/John Savage Photography Collection
at Durham Museum

Prior to World War II, management forces in Omaha had successfully confined efforts to organize labor. After the War, things were quite different. In 1948, workers in Omaha joined in a national strike against the Big Four, and for the next twenty years, management and labor struggled with each other. But while they struggled, Nebraskans, and others, continued to eat beef at an ever-increasing rate.