Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. According to the 2014 Population Estimates, Omaha’s population was 446,599. Including its suburbs, Omaha formed the 60th-largest metropolitan area in the United States in 2013, with an estimated population of 895,151 residing in eight counties.
Omaha’s pioneer period began in 1854, when the city was founded by speculators from neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa. The city was founded along the Missouri River, and a crossing called Lone Tree Ferry earned the city its nickname, the “Gateway to the West”. Omaha introduced this new West to the world in 1898, when it played host to the World’s Fair, dubbed the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. During the 19th century, Omaha’s central location in the United States spurred the city to become an important national transportation hub. Throughout the rest of the 19th century, the transportation and jobbing sectors were important in the city, along with its railroads and breweries. In the 20th century, the Omaha Stockyards, once the world’s largest, and its meatpacking plants gained international prominence.
Today, Omaha is the home to the headquarters of four Fortune 500 companies: mega-conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway; one of the world’s largest construction companies, Kiewit Corporation; insurance and financial firm Mutual of Omaha; and the United States’ largest railroad operator, Union Pacific Corporation. Berkshire Hathaway is headed by local investor Warren Buffett, one of the richest people in the world, according to a decade’s worth of Forbes Magazine rankings, some of which have ranked him as high as No. 1. Omaha is also the home to five Fortune 1000 headquarters: Green Plains Renewable Energy, TD Ameritrade, Valmont Industries, Werner Enterprises, and West Corporation. Also headquartered in Omaha are First National Bank of Omaha, the largest privately held bank in the United States; three of the nation’s largest 10 architecture/engineering firms: DLR Group, HDR, Inc., and Leo A Daly; the Gallup Organization, of Gallup Poll fame; and its riverfront Gallup University. Enron began in Omaha as Northern Natural Gas in 1930, before taking over a smaller Houston company in 1985 to form InterNorth, which Kenneth Lay moved permanently to Houston, in 1987.
The city’s high quality of life has attracted entrepreneurs to the area, who have developed numerous businesses and industrial activities. The city’s stable infrastructure ensures its consistent growth. Apart from its welcoming attitude and ethic of hard work, Omaha has always been characterized by the numerous leisure activities available to its residents and visitors. Recently, it has developed a convention center and arena close to the town’s historical area that has been redeveloped into a commercial and residential area. The Old Market, one of the city’s most popular attractions of the city for its visitors, with amazing restaurants, several specialty shops, bars, bakeries, cappuccino shops, breweries, stores, galleries and nightclubs situated in the city’s former fruit and vegetable market district. This increasingly thriving part of Omaha has also recently become a popular residential area, after numerous historical buildings have been transformed into stylish loft apartments. The city’s exceptional environment ensures a fantastic lifestyle for its residents and newcomers.
Omaha offers a wide range of appealing activities, community services, features and cultural opportunities, despite its very much relaxing life style that is so appealing to city dwellers. This is reflected by a number of statistics released by the media. According to Forbes magazine, Omaha is the 11th best city for Business and Careers. In addition, Business Magazines ranked Omaha as one of the top 25 Cities for “Best Educated Workforce”. According to Parenting Magazine, the city is one of the 10 best to raise children. It is in the top 12% of best locations to live according to a study carried out by Places Rated Almanac, and one of the city’s academic institutions, Creighton University, is considered as the best of all Midwest universities by the U.S. News & World Report. Nebraska consistently ranks between the US best states according to Morgan Quitno, having been ranked as the ninth most livable state. Redbook ranked the city as one of the ten best for working mothers.
The modern economy of Omaha is diverse and built on skilled knowledge jobs. In 2009, Forbes identified Omaha as the nation’s number one “Best Bang-For-The Buck City” and ranked it number one on “America’s Fastest-Recovering Cities” list. Tourism in Omaha benefits the city’s economy greatly, with the annual College World Series providing important revenue and the city’s Henry Doorly Zoo serving as the top attraction in Nebraska as well as being named the best zoo in the world by Trip Advisor in 2014. Also, Omaha hosted the U.S. Olympic swim trials in 2008, 2012 and 2016. There is speculation that the swim trials, which serve as a major tourist attraction, will take place in Omaha again in 2020