SOUTH OMAHA UNION STOCK YARDS, HAER No. NE--10-A LIVESTOCK EXCHANGE BUILDING 2900 "O" Plaza Omaha Douglas County Nebraska PHOTOGRAPHS WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA Historic American Engineering Record United States Department of the Interior National Park Service Midwest Regional Office 1709 Jackson Street Omaha, Nebraska 68102-2571 HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD SOUTH OMAHA UNION STOCK YARDS, LIVESTOCK EXCHANGE BUILDING HAER No. NE-10-A Location: Omaha, Nebraska Date of Construction: 1924-26 Designer: George Prinz Present Owner: City of Omaha Present Use: Vacant Significance: The Livestock Exchange Building is significant as part of the large complex of buildings that housed the stockyards operations. An exchange building was at the heart of any stockyards operation, providing office space for commission firms and others conducting livestock business. In the 1920s, Omaha stockyards president Everett Buckingham initiated an improvement effort at the stockyards aimed at modernizing and expanding the facilities. The Livestock Exchange Building was the centerpiece of this $2 million effort, which also included a new viaduct and hog facility. It replaced an exchange building constructed in 1885-86. The Livestock Exchange Building became an important social center for Omaha as well as being prominent in the local landscape and economy. The community frequently used the exchange building's tenth-floor ballroom and banquet room to host parties, dances, rallies, and other celebrations. Founded in 1883, the South Omaha Union Stock Yards quickly grew into a major center for the livestock industry. Cattle, hogs, and sheep from western ranges and Corn Belt farms were bought and sold at the stockyards, many destined for the adjacent meatpacking plants. In the 1950s, Omaha passed Chicago to become the world's busiest stockyards. However, business declined in the following decades as livestock was increasingly shipped directly from farm to packer via truck. The stockyards' company began to sell off its acreage, and in 1998 the city of Omaha acquired the remaining land for a business park. The surviving stockyards operations moved from South Omaha to Red Oak, Iowa, in October 1999. SOUTH OMAHA UNION STOCK YARDS, LIVESTOCK EXCHANGE BUILDING HAER No. NE-10-A Page2 Project Information: The city of Omaha acquired the South Omaha Union Stock Yards in 1998. It plans to renovate the Livestock Exchange Building for new uses and demolish the remainder of the stockyards. As mitigation for the loss of this nationally significant resource, Omaha Mayor Hal Daub and the city council agreed to document the stockyards for the Historic American Engineering Record. The recordation project has been overseen for the city by Acting Planning Director Robert C. Peters and Real Property Manager James R. Thele. Dena Sanford of the National Park Service's Midwest Support Office in Omaha developed specifications for the report and reviewed draft and final products. State review was provided by Robert Puschendorf and William Callahan of the State Historic Preservation Office at the Nebraska State Historical Society, Lincoln. Librarians and other State Historical Society staff provided invaluable assistance during the course of the project. Other helpful archivists include Lawrence Lee and Joseph Masek at the Durham Western Heritage Museum, Omaha, and Jeffrey Spencer and Deirdre Routt at the Historical Society of Douglas County, also in Omaha. Robert Griffin, Edward Jankowski, and others at the Omaha engineering firm Ehrhart Griffin and Associates were especially accommodating during the course of the project, as was Carl Hatcher, operations manager for the Omaha Livestock Market. The city retained Hess, Roise and Company, historical consultants based in Minneapolis, to prepare the recordation. Charlene Roise, president of Hess Roise, served as principal investigator and chief historian for the project and was responsible for writing the overview narrative. Staff historian Abbey Christman drafted reports for individual components of the complex, with research assistance from staff historian Denis Gardner. Stuart MacDonald, a principal of MacDonald and Mack Architects Ltd., Minneapolis, prepared the delineations with the assistance of staff architect Todd Grover. Jerry Mathiason completed the photography, archivally processing the film and prints at his Minneapolis lab. Robert Jensen of Jensen and Wilcoxon assisted with graphic design. SOUTH OMAHA UNION STOCK YARDS, LIVESTOCK EXCHANGE BUILDING HAER No. NE-10-A Page 3 Description The Livestock Exchange Building is located on the west side of Buckingham Road (HAER No. NE-10-D). The building is bordered to the north and west by the Cattle Pens (HAER No. NE-10- n and to the south by the Motor Truck #1 (HAER No. NE-10-J). The Exchange Building is designed in a modified Northern Italian Brick or Italian Renaissance style. The eleven-story, H­ shaped building has a steel frame encased in concrete with reinforced-concrete floors. It is faced with red brick laid in a common bond pattern. Decorative brickwork is featured on the exterior of the building. Brick pilasters divide the walls into bays. Spandrels displaying a variety of brick patterns, including basketweave, herringbone, and other geometric designs, separate the rows of windows. An elaborate parapet wall rises above the building's flat roof. It is comprised of two raised brick courses in a <lenticular pattern, then a brick belt course, a corbel table, another <lenticular course, and finally a raking coping. The parapet wall rises to a shallow gable on the east and west sides. The main entrance to the Exchange Building is through a pair of double doors set within enriched round compound arches on the east facade. This portal is centered on a three-bay, two­ story extension of the center section. A reinforced-concrete walkway connects Buckingham Road and the main entrance. A varied height brick wall with saddlebacked coping lines the walkway. Clustered columns support the entry arches, with each cluster composed of two round and two angular columns. The capitals are foliated. The tympanum of each arch is filled with wrought-iron scrollwork; the archivolts are decorated with carved panels. The doors are metal and glass with rectangular transoms. Decorative iron light fixtures are attached to the pilaster strips flanking the entry. Above the arched entry lie three roundels with cable molding, topped by a nine-arch arcade composed of paired and clustered columns. A stone panel with the words "Live Stock Exchange" has been added between the roundels and the arcade. A clock is centered above the arcade. The side bays of the entrance are symmetrical. Each has two camber windows separated by a colonette and recessed within a round-arch opening. The enriched arches are lined with cable molding and rest on brick pilasters. The capitals of the columns and pilasters are foliated. On the second story of the bays, four-arch arcades top <lenticular brick courses. The center section of the building rises behind the decorated entry and is visible through the arcade. Brick pilasters divide it into three bays. The center bay is four windows wide, and the side bays are two windows wide. There are eight horizontal rows of windows. Six of these rows have rectangular one-over-one sash windows; the third and the eighth rows of windows are two­ light camber windows topped by round, brick-header arches. At the top of the center bay there is an additional row of four small, narrow camber windows. Brick corbel tables top the first, fifth and top row of windows. The north and south wings of the building are largely symmetrical. On the east facade, brick pilasters divide each wing into three bays, and smaller pilasters separate the windows. The center bays of the wings contain three windows, and the side bays contain two windows. On the viaduct level of the south wing, there is a row of rectangular one-over-one sash windows with stone sills, SOUTH OMAHA UNION STOCK YARDS, LNESTOCK EXCHANGE BUILDING HAER No. NE-10-A Page4 topped with a row of soldier bricks. Plain brick spandrel panels separate the rectangular windows from a row of one-over-one camber windows. The upper windows are set within round arches with foliated capitals; each capital has a unique design. The archivolts are decorated with cable molding. A corbel table and a <lenticular raised brick course lie above the arches. This pattern is repeated on the north wing except that the windows are continuous, with no spandrel panel. Also, the South Omaha Stockyards National Bank cut a door in the middle bay of the north wing in 1967. Modem metal and glass doors with large glass sidelights and a heavy concrete lintel now extend across the middle bay. The concrete walkway from the viaduct was widened to include the new entrance. The walkway was only extended to the north, so it is not centered on the main entry. The upper floors of the wings are divided into the same bays as the viaduct level. There are six floors of one-over-one sash windows. A corbel table and a <lenticular brick course lie above the sixth row of windows. The wall is topped by a row of tall windows with round brick header arches. As on the viaduct level, brick spandrel panels divide this top row of windows on the south wing while the windows are continuous on the north wing. The interior-facing walls of the north and south wings are divided into two bays, each containing two windows. There are six rows of rectangular one-over-one sash windows. Following the fenestration pattern of the east facade, the interior of the north wing is topped by tall, five-light camber windows while the south wing is topped by two rows of one-over-one windows. Stairs from Buckingham Road lead down to the ground floor of the Exchange Building.