History of Omaha, Nebraska - 1950 To 1999

1950 To 1999

In 1950, the NCAA moved the College World Series (CWS) to Rosenblatt Stadium, (then known as Omaha Municipal Stadium). Started in 1947, the tournament was held at Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1947 and 1948, and Wichita, Kansas in 1949. Since 1950 the series has been held annually at the Rosenblatt, despite bids from several cities to move the CWS to another venue.

More than 6,000,000 fans have attended CWS games in Omaha. The City of Omaha has regularly expanded and renovated the stadium to accommodate fans, teams, and media covering the event. ESPN televised every game of the event from 1980 through 1987. ESPN started coverage again when the championship series went to a best-of-3 format in 2003. From 1988 through 2002, CBS televised the championship game: a winner-take-all single game.

In 1955 the Omaha Cardinals joined the AAA American Association, and thrived until the late 1950s. That team folded in 1959. In 1961-62 the Omaha Dodgers were the farm team for the Los Angeles Dodgers. After the city went six years without a professional team, the Omaha Royals started in 1969. They have continued since.

By the 1960s, the Omaha Stockyards had become the world's largest livestock processing center. They surpassed Chicago's Union Stock Yards in the late 1950s. Organized labor's hard won gains came undone as the industry restructured in the 1980s and 1990s. Improved truck and boxcar refrigeration capabilities encouraged the slaughtering process to move closer to feedlots. Plants were moved to rural areas and hired non-union labor. All centralized stockyard activity declined and the Omaha Stockyards were closed in 1999. New generations of immigrants are employed in meatpacking; now they are mostly Hispanic from Mexico, and Central and South America.

Weather was severe in 1975. In January, the city was paralyzed by a devastating blizzard that dumped Eleven to nineteen inches of snow on the city. In May the city was hit by a tornado. The Omaha Tornado of 1975 was a F4 tornado that ripped through neighborhoods along 72nd Street on May 6, 1975, killing 3 and injuring 133. In terms of damage, it was the most costly tornado in American history to that date, with damage estimates between $250 million and $500 million.

In 1988 Omaha demolished a downtown district of brick warehouses called "Jobbers Canyon", listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The delisting and demolition of Jobbers Canyon made way for the campus headquarters of ConAgra Foods and the city's Heartland of America Park. The loss of the buildings also galvanized citizens to pay more attention to the historic fabric of the city.