Prairie freighting and Missouri river navigation, were of importance before the construction of the Union Pacific railway, and the activity of the city in securing the freighting interest gave her an initial start over the other cities of the state. Council Bluffs was the legal, but Omaha the practical, eastern terminus of that great undertaking, work on which began at Omaha in December, 1863. The city was already connected as early as 1863 by telegraph with Chicago, St. Louis, and since 1861 with San Francisco. Lines of the present great Rock Island, Burlington and Northwestern railway systems all entered the city in the years 1867-1868. Meat-packing began as early as 1871, but its first great advance followed the removal of the Union stock-yards south of the city in 1884. South Omaha was rapidly built up around them. A Trans-Mississippi Exposition illustrating the progress and resources of the states west of the Mississippi was held at Omaha in 1898. It represented an investment of $2,000,000, and in spite of financial depression and wartime, ninety per cent of their subscriptions were returned in dividends to the stockholders. The original town site occupied an elongated and elevated river terrace, now given over wholly to business; behind this are hills and bluffs over which the residential districts have extended. CHAPTER XX OTHER DAMAGE FROM THE NEBRASKA TORNADO GREAT HAVOC IN NEBRASKA TOWNS--DESCRIPTION OF THE TORNADO--YUTAN A SUFFERER--THE TUMBLING HOUSES OF BENSON--CURIOUS TRAGEDIES--HOUSES TUMBLING ABOUT. The storm which lashed its way through Omaha on Easter Sunday had already carried havoc into other Nebraska towns. William Coon, president of an automobile company of Lincoln, Nebraska, gave a stirring description of the tornado as he saw it from the platform of an observation car on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad: DESCRIPTION OF THE TORNADO "For miles," he said, "it seemed as if the train were being pursued by the storm. We were approaching Ralston, Neb., when I first noticed the strange cloud mounting the sky. Before that it had been clear." Mr. Coon, from his observation car seat, saw the storm strike Ralston. "The passengers sat as if glued to their seats when the cloud struck," he said. "The engineer brought the engine to a stop and the passengers ran over to the wreckage of the houses. We could hear the groans of dying men and the wails and shrieks of injured women and children. I entered a house, or rather what had been a house, and beneath me lay a woman. I looked and I knew that she was dead. We got all of the injured out of the ruins and brought them to the train. "We were about to leave when our attention was called to a little house some distance from the others. It had been wrecked and moved from its foundation, but we found a mother and her little baby lying upon a bed uninjured.