In between Saratoga and Florence was a wide, smooth plain. In the mid-1850s a large group of Irish immigrants built dugouts and sod houses in this area, which other settlers derisively labeled "Gophertown." Residents of Florence and Gophertown skirmished violently in 1856; however, no major change resulted. The Irish became well-established in Omaha, building economic and political power before the waves of European immigrants and black migrants arrived at the end of the 19th century. Many created an ethnic enclave in Sheelytown in South Omaha, near work at the stockyards and meatpacking plants.