Graffiti News

The murals preserve a history beyond the stockyards

The South Omaha Mural Project makes the histories of the communities that built South Omaha visible on neighborhood buildings. In its August 26, 2026 report, the Omaha World-Herald describes paintings spread across this part of Omaha, Nebraska, including walls at bakeries, pubs and schools. Their subjects connect the area's industrial past with the cultural life that developed around it.

According to the newspaper, the Union Stockyards opened in 1884 and helped draw workers to the stockyards and meatpacking plants. Arrivals came from Poland, Czechia, Italy, Ireland, Lithuania, Croatia, Mexico and elsewhere. Black Americans also settled in South Omaha during the Great Migration. The population exceeded 8,000 in 1890 and reached 40,000 by the area's annexation by Omaha in 1915.

The Livestock Exchange Building remains, but the livestock pens and large packinghouses have disappeared. South Omaha tour guide Gary Kastrick saw illustrations as a way to make those stories tangible. His idea developed into the mural project, with participating artists including Richard Harrison, Rebecca Storz, Hugo Zamorano, Mike Girón, Jair Rodriguez and Quintin Slovek.

Community stories take different visual forms

The individual murals tell distinct stories through celebrations, journeys and everyday institutions. The 2014 South 13th Street Mural at Koenig Dunne, 1266 South 13th Street, preceded the wider project creatively. Its archways and film-strip imagery draw on neighborhood memories and the style of Czech artist Alphonse Mucha.

At Lithuanian Bakery, 5217 South 33rd Avenue, the 2015 Sieninis Paveikslas honors Lithuanian immigrants and the language, faith and traditions they carried with them. Nostrovia, painted in 2016 at Dinker's, 2368 South 29th Street, uses a four-day Polish wedding to bring together food, holiday customs, stockyards work and community history.

Il Grande Viaggio, completed in 2022 at Orsi's Italian Bakery and Pizzeria, 621 Pacific Street, connects travel from Italy and Sicily to Ellis Island with the businesses and institutions immigrants established in South Omaha. These subjects make a useful distinction for mural viewers: industrial employment explains why people arrived, while the paintings also explore how people made a life after arriving.

Black and Indigenous histories belong in the same landscape

The project also gives space to Black and Indigenous experiences within South Omaha's history. The Black American Mural, a 2021 work at The Simple Foundation, 3003 Q Street, addresses a community the newspaper says is often overlooked because of the prominence of Black history in north Omaha. It presents a century of labor, achievement and culture in South Omaha.

Ancestral Voices, also from 2021, stands at 2402 N Street and honors the importance and strength of Native American women. Four figures in traditional dress represent the Ho-Chunk, Isanti, Osni Ponca and Omaha Tribe. Threads of Life, the 2019 Mayan mural at Kubat Pharmacy, 2401 N Street, uses three loops of fabric to represent past, present and future. Its project also includes the Mayan Mosaic Sculpture at 4913 South 25th Street.

Viewed together, these works offer several perspectives on a shared area. Looking at who appears in each painting, and which objects carry the story, provides a way to compare the murals without treating different communities as interchangeable.

Street addresses provide a starting point for visiting

South 24th Street offers several named locations for a mural visit. The newspaper places both the 2014 Magic City mural and the 2024 Quetzal at 4837 South 24th Street. Aztec, a 2023 work featuring Tlaloc, the Aztec embodiment of rain and fertility, is listed at 4903 South 24th Street.

Quetzal connects a bird sacred to Mesoamerican cultures with the legend of Mayan warrior prince Tecún Umán. Above the bird, a streetcar image honors a longtime driver who served that stop. The combination brings cultural memory and a specific neighborhood connection into the same composition.

For a broader visit, the bakery, pub and N Street addresses provide additional destinations. Organizing the works by address helps distinguish the paintings from the businesses that host them and keeps attention on their neighborhood setting. The buildings are part of the encounter: the stories are attached to places where community life happens.

The newspaper also describes a quilt-style mural planned for a new housing development along Highway 75, with separate cultural panels joined under a theme of being woven together. As of the report, that work was a plan; no completion date was supplied.

Explore surrounding mural locations on the Wallscape map.

Source: Omaha World-Herald