Drive past enough brick giants in Nebraska and you stop wondering what’s inside them. I made that mistake with one particular eleven-story building, assuming the doors led to offices and nothing more.
Then someone told me about the tenth floor, where twenty-two-foot ceilings and arched windows have been sitting quietly since 1926. Turns out the plainest-looking landmark on the block hides two ballrooms that still host parties above what used to be the biggest livestock market in the country.
An Eleven-Story Giant Above South Omaha
Brick rises eleven stories straight up from a South Omaha street corner, with an arched entry portico that looks built for horse-drawn carriages rather than pickup trucks. The Livestock Exchange Building sits on a slight rise, so its upper floors catch the light long after the surrounding blocks have gone shadowed.
Architect George Prinz designed it in an H shape, blending Romanesque Revival with Northern Italian Renaissance Revival details. Peter Kiewit and Sons handled construction, and the doors opened in May 1926…