[2] The city's Polish community was historically based in several ethnic enclaves throughout South Omaha, including Little Poland and Sheelytown, first dominated by Irish immigrants.
Poles have had a presence in Omaha since the late 1870s, when they started arriving to work in the meatpacking, stockyards, smelting and railroad industries.
[3] The state of Nebraska, and Omaha in particular, was advertised heavily in Poland as a destination for jobs starting in 1877 by the Chicago-based Polish Roman Catholic Union of America and the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad.
Ralph Modjeski, a Polish-American civil engineer, helped build the Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge in Omaha in 1872.
[11] Nellie Tayloe Ross, the first woman to serve as governor of an American State, taught at a school in one of Omaha's Polish neighborhoods in the late 1890s.
Dissidents within the congregation put forward Stephen Kaminski, a Polish nationalist and Franciscan friar, as their priest.
Around the turn of the century, members of the Hanscom Park Methodist Episcopal Church became concerned with the "lawlessness and destitute behavior" of Poles living in Sheelytown.
[17] A statue was placed in honor of Poles from the Omaha area who fought with the Blue Army during World War I at St. John's Cemetery in the suburb of Bellevue.
[22] The Immigration History Research Center Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, holds the Omaha Photograph Collection records.