By the time W. Boyd Jones brought his construction expertise to Omaha in 1924, the 40-year-old building contractor had already built the tallest building in Texas and curried favor among the Busch family of Anheuser-Busch fame. But the St. Louis native was only getting started. Over the next 40 years, Jones would build a legacy in Omaha and greater Nebraska that continues to thrive after nearly a century in business — and he would even command the attention of military brass during the war effort of the early 1940s.
When commercial work dried up during World War II, Jones contributed his aptitude for management to the wartime effort. Jones, whose reputation includes being one of the founding signatories of the Nebraska Chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America, would earn yet another attribute by the time the war culminated in a costly Allied victory: shipbuilder extraordinaire.
As a shipyard superintendent for Omaha Steel Works — a local foundry that held U.S. Navy contracts to build 24 landing craft vessels designed to deliver armored tanks to beachheads, among other craft — Jones oversaw production of the vessels also known as “tank lighters.” (These tank lighters are not to be confused with the more famous Higgins boats, the amphibious craft that landed troops during the invasion of Normandy on D-Day in 1944. Coincidentally, those craft were designed by Andrew Higgins, a Nebraska native who grew up in Omaha but built his namesake vessel from a headquarters base in New Orleans.) According to industrial engineer, maritime economist, and naval architect Tim Colton, tank lighters of the variety produced in Omaha and elsewhere in 1942 measured 114 feet in length and weighed 133 tons.
As it turned out, Jones’ skills were worthy of note. A Western Union telegram sent from Capt. H. G. Donald, the Navy’s Supervisor of Shipbuilding, upon the completion of the contract in December 1942 (see image) states that the tank lighters built under Jones’ supervision were completed in “one half the time originally planned.”
While the war dramatically shifted the focus of the U.S. construction industry from projects at home to those supporting the Allied efforts, endeavors overseen by the likes of Jones were a marvel and undoubtedly contributed to victory. A 1997 volume published by the National Defense University Press titled The BIG ‘L’: American Logistics in World War II, provides citations as such.
Said H.E. Foreman, then-managing director of the Associated General Contractors of America: “A sense of urgency prevailed throughout the war construction program. Work drove ahead through all kinds of weather and obstacles. Projects of unprecedented size and complexity were completed at speeds which surprised even the industry. The speed cost money, but to the extent that it shortened the war, it saved lives.”
Lt. Gen. Eugene Reybold, wartime Chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, also had high praise for the U.S. construction effort.
“By the war’s end it was evident that the American construction capacity was the one factor of American strength which our enemies most consistently underestimated. It was the one element of our strength for which they had no basis for comparison,” Reybold said. “They had seen nothing like it.”
After the war ended, Jones resumed his contracting career and the firm under his direction went on to complete major projects including a then-new space in 1959 for the Omaha Community Playhouse. The organization today represents the largest community theater in the U.S. After Jones’ death in 1963, subsequent leadership teams continued his long-term vision that reflected the ideals he pursued in the industry — particularly a deep commitment to doing right by customers and treating them with the utmost respect.
