omaha and made omaha a national site on the psyche of the cold war. announcer: later, how omaha and the railroads helped take -- overtake chicago as the stockyards. >> south omaha was basically the stockyards much the city was incorporated in 1884 and it was called the manley city because people literally thought it bloomed overnight. announcer: first up, we will visit the durham museum, housed in the former union train depot. it tells the story of a once-thriving industry in omaha. >> we're standing in the main room of the union station in omaha. e architect, william stanley underwood, wanted to make a statement about the strength of the railroads. in his mind it was strength, masculinity and that's what he really wanted this bl to embody. omaha really started out as a frontier town, typical frontier town. actually citizen from council bluffs decide they wanted to found the city on this side of the river. council bluffs was established to -- knew y wanted the railroad was coming through but they didn't know which side. have aid it would help to the city ready to go. and it worked. but cities on the west side of the river developed greater because it's easier to move est. union pacific is one of the pre

a museum preserving open ome history. this exhibit focuses on livestock. very important industry for omaha, south omaha as a city and then eventually for the city as a whole. >> cattle marketing centers are strategically located and omaha serves a large western area. its holding pens have handled more than 100 million cattle since its founding more than 80 years ago. here's our livestock train, right on schedule, early morning arrival. >> the livestock industry begins in 19 -- 1887 as a fattening station. a place for cattle to get fed before they head to a stockyards to be slaughtered, and eventually this turns into the stockyards as we know the omaha stockyards in the 1880's. 1883 is the start of what we call the union stockyards. that is the beginning of this industry here. we have eight omaha city leaders who purchase just shy of 2,000 acres of land and devote it -- 250 of those acres to livestock pens and the livestock exchange building and things like that. so they're developing this strirks starting -- starting it off in 1884. omaha had an existing railroad here with owen pacific and the union station, and