The next January, the first proposal for a market house in Omaha came from J. L. Williams, a government director with the Union Pacific Railroad.

[4] In 1877, the city council held an election for voters on whether to establish two market houses, including one on Jefferson Square and the other south of Farnam Street.

[6] In 1881, a former Union Pacific official named Webster Snyder proposed that he would personally secure money for a market house be built in Omaha's first park, Jefferson Square.

[7] Costing US$200,000, Snyder said he could get "enough money out of New York and Boston to build a half dozen market houses [in Omaha].

Snyder's plan hitched the concept to a 50-year-lease, and apparently the idea of forcing city offices to be located in the building for so long was unappealing.

The issue was raised again in 1887, this time with a glass and steel building rising in the middle of Capitol Avenue over a full basement, all of which would be packed with vendors.

Later, the citation of Boston's Faneuil Hall earning $85,000 annually around 1890 assuaged many concerns for the future of Omaha's market house.

There were initial plans made to construct a temporary market to test the concept, but were killed within a month of the proposal to the city council.

People believed they would save money on produce and meats, and they thought a market house would bring those savings.<.

A 1900 editorial suggested that the construction of the Omaha Auditorium should dovetail with the erection of a market house, perhaps even combining the two.

[18] In early 1902, the Omaha Grocers' Association stated their firm opposition to a market house.

Harry Fisher, the organization's leader, said that retail grocers would "fight the building of the market house to the bitter end.

"[19] A long editorial in the December 1901 edition of the Omaha World-Herald advocated locating the Market House in the middle of Capitol Avenue again in order to avoid the cost of land acquisition.

Citing the advice of Senator Charles F. Manderson of Omaha, the writer was a grocer who signed the article L.V.

In early November 1902, the courts awarded Mercer an injunction against the market house by ruling that the City of Omaha effectively could not build on that specific land "in perpetuity."

It probably wasn't a coincidence that Mercer was a property owner in the area where the city's early markets were located around South 11th and Jackson Streets.

A year later Dickinson also ruled in favor of the idea that the City of Omaha could order produce sellers to use the market house.

Grocers protested that giving up their neighborhood wagon stalls and spots in the warehouse district (present-day Old Market) would cost them business.

The Omaha World-Herald 's resistance continued, with a facetious commentary about the stalls staying empty a week after its opening.

That same year, the World-Herald proposed the building be repurposed as a workhouse, which came into fashion in the United States during that era.

[36] The Omaha Women's Club was rumored to use the other half of the market house supplies for a new headquarters.

The implication was plain: In the 1880s, the court ruled against using Jefferson Square for anything other than a park, including the market house.