Livestock Exchange Building

Livestock Exchange Building
2900 O Plaza
1926
Architect: George Prinz
Romanesque and Northern Italian Renaissance Revival styles
Designated Omaha Landmark: June 22, 1999

The largest and most visually prominent building constructed on the Omaha Union Stockyards site, the Livestock Exchange Building is the most significant structure associated with the Omaha Stockyards. Upon its completion in May 1926, it served as the center of the livestock industry in Omaha.

The three largest meatpacking centers in the history of the nation were Chicago, Kansas City and Omaha. In 1955 Omaha reached a long time goal, becoming the largest stockyard and meat- processing center in the country. By 1957 the livestock industry employed half of Omaha’s workforce.

Designed as a multi-purpose building, the Livestock Exchange Building housed not only offices but a bakery, cafeteria, kitchen, soda fountain, cigar stand, telephone and telegraph offices, apartments and sleeping rooms, a clothing store, ballrooms and a convention hall.

Stylistically, the Livestock Exchange Building is an eclectic mix of the Romanesque revival style and the northern Italian Renaissance revival. Sitting like an island in the center of what once were expansive stock pens in South Omaha, the building retains an autonomous and imposing position over this section of the city.

(This building is also listed in the National Register of Historic Places.)