Nebraska State Capitol Informations

The Nebraska State Capitol is the seat of government for the U.S. State of Nebraska and is located in downtown Lincoln. It was designed by New York architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue in 1920 and was constructed of Indiana limestone from 1922 to 1932. The capitol houses the primary executive and judicial offices of Nebraska and is home to the Nebraska Legislature—the only state unicameral legislature in the United States.

The Nebraska State Capitol is often known as the "Tower on the Plains," and its 400-foot (120 m) tower can be seen 20 miles (32 km) away. It was the first state capitol to incorporate a functional tower into its design. Goodhue stated that "Nebraska is a level country and its capitol should have some altitude or beacon effect." In 1976, the National Park Service designated the capitol a National Historic Landmark, and in 1997, the Park Service extended the designation to include the capitol grounds, which Ernst H. Herminghaus designed in 1932.

The structure is anchored by a three-story, 437-foot (133 m) square base. This square base houses offices most frequently visited by the public. The second floor (main floor) is home to the office of the Governor of Nebraska, the Nebraska Supreme Court, the Nebraska Court of Appeals, and the Nebraska Legislature.

From the center of the base, a tower rises 362 feet (110 m), crowned by a gold-tiled dome. The finial—The Sower and its pedestal—add an additional 32 feet (9.8 m) to the building's height. Common measurements list the capitol at 400 feet (120 m), making it the second-tallest U.S. statehouse, surpassed only by the 450-foot (140 m) Louisiana State Capitol.

Goodhue originally envisioned much of the tower to house the collections of the Nebraska State Library, and he planned for each of the 17-foot (5.2 m) tower floors to include glass-floored stacks for book storage. As early as November 1920, however, Goodhue indicated that the tower could serve any purpose, including office space. By September 1925, the Capitol Commission decided that the tower should be built for office space. Tower floors continue to house various offices today.

In total, there are 15 stories in the capitol (three mezzanines also exist within the tower between the 3rd and 4th floors). Memorial Chamber on the 14th floor—the highest publicly accessible level—has four observation decks that offer views of Lincoln from 245 feet (75 m) above the ground.

Lincoln Municipal Code places height restrictions on structures within the designated Capitol Environs District. This code helps to maintain the capitol's title as the tallest building in Lincoln. The capitol held the title of tallest building in Nebraska until 1969 with the completion of the 478-foot (146 m) Woodmen Tower in downtown Omaha. With the completion of Omaha's 634-foot (193 m) First National Bank Tower in 2002, the capitol became the third-tallest building in Nebraska.

Congress officially opened Nebraska Territory with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Almost instantly a factional divide between North Platters (those living north of the Platte River) and South Platters (those living south of the Platte) arose over the question of capital location. Much to the chagrin of the South Platters, Acting Governor Thomas B. Cuming selected the small northern village of Omaha City for the seat of government. Cuming was from Iowa, and as his political allies were investors in the Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company, Omaha as capital would be beneficial to his personal political career.

Results from the first territorial census, however, revealed 914 North Platters and 1,818 South Platters. The South Platters, with greater legislative representation, would be able to take the capital, but Cuming ignored proportional representation and assigned seven councilmen and fourteen representatives to the north and six councilmen and twelve representatives to the south. The North Platters, with greater political power, confirmed Omaha as the capital.

In Omaha, two structures served the Territory of Nebraska. The first was a two-story brick building donated by the Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company. This building, formerly located on 9th Street between Douglas and Farnam, served the Territorial Legislature for the sessions of 1855 and 1857. A second building, constructed in 1857–58 on the site of present-day Omaha Central High School, served the remaining sessions of the Territorial Legislature and the first sessions of the State Legislature beginning in 1867. In June 1867, the Third Session of the State Legislature passed Senate Bill Number 44 which "provid[ed] for the location of the Seat of Government of the State of Nebraska, and for the erection of public building thereat." The bill also created a commission (remembered as the Capital Commission) whose charge was to select a capital site somewhere within the boundaries of Seward County, the southern halves of Butler and Saunders counties, and the northern half of Lancaster County. On July 29, 1867, the Capital Commission selected the village of Lancaster as the capital city and renamed it Lincoln.

In Lincoln, two structures first served the State of Nebraska. On October 10, 1867, the Capital Commission contracted Chicago architect John Morris to build a statehouse in Lincoln on the newly platted Capitol Square (bounded by the streets of 14th and 16th, H and K). Morris designed the capitol with local limestones which began to deteriorate upon the building's completion in late 1868. By 1879, the State of Nebraska determined to replace its crumbling statehouse through piecemeal construction of a new capitol. Architect William H. Willcox designed a Renaissance Revival capitol, and the legislature appropriated $75,000 for construction of its west wing—finished in 1881. The same year, the legislature appropriated $100,000 for an east wing, which was finished in 1882. In 1883, the legislature authorized the Board of Public Lands and Buildings to raze the old capitol and construct the central portion of the Willcox design, not to exceed $450,000. The State of Nebraska finally completed its new, second state capitol in 1888.The second state capitol began to experience structural issues, especially in its foundation, within a couple of decades of its completion. After the building was deemed unsafe, the Nebraska Legislature made several attempts to fund construction of a third state capitol.

On February 20, 1919, the Nebraska Legislature passed House Roll 3 which established the Nebraska Capitol Commission to oversee construction of a new statehouse. The next day, Governor McKelvie signed the bill with its emergency clause and appointed the new commission. William E. Hardy, president of Hardy Furniture Company, and Walter W. Head, vice president of the Omaha National Bank, were Republicans from Lincoln and Omaha respectively. William H. Thompson, a prominent lawyer, was a Democrat from Grand Island. The three citizen members joined the ex officio members, Governor McKelvie and State Engineer George E. Johnson, to become the Nebraska Capitol Commission.

House Roll 3 declared that the cost of the capitol was not to exceed $5 million and established the Capitol Fund, which consisted of the proceeds of a special property tax. The Capitol Commission let the Capitol Fund accrue for two years before construction in order to have ample cash reserves. Throughout construction of the capitol, the legislature extended the levy and ultimately raised the spending limit to $10 million. The Nebraska State Constitution limits state indebtedness, so most state projects must be funded on a "pay-as-you-go" basis. The State of Nebraska funded the capitol under the same principles, and the final cost, $9,800,449.07, was completely paid when the Capitol Commission dissolved in 1935.

One of the Capitol Commission's first actions was to hire Omaha architect Thomas Rogers Kimball to serve as the commission's professional advisor. Kimball, who was president of the American Institute of Architects, devised a two-stage competition for the selection of a capitol architect. In the preliminary stage, the commission invited Nebraska architects to submit capitol designs and hired Irving Kane Pond to serve as judge. Together, Pond and the commission selected Ellery L. Davis (Lincoln), John Latenser and Sons (Omaha), and John McDonald and Alan McDonald (Omaha) to compete in the final stage. Next the commission opened the final stage to nationally known architects including: Bliss and Faville (San Francisco), Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (New York), H. Van Buren Magonigle (New York), McKim, Mead, and White (New York), John Russell Pope (New York), Tracy and Swartwout (New York), and Paul Cret and Zantzinger, Borie and Medary (Philadelphia).

Kimball wrote an innovative competition program that did not dictate plan, style, or material for the capitol. The program did state, however, the commission's desire that the architect collaborate with "sculptor, painter, and landscapist" to create a unified design. Finally, Kimball organized the competition so that the jury was selected only after the ten competitors had submitted their designs to the Capitol Commission. The designs were identified by numbers and "separate sealed envelopes contained the architects' names and plan numbers." Next, the Capitol Commission chose the first of three competition jurors, Waddy Butler Wood; the competitors chose the second, James Gamble Rogers; and Wood and Rogers chose the third, Willis Polk. On June 26, 1920, the jury chose the author of design "Number 4" as the architect of the Nebraska State Capitol. The author of design "Number 4" was Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue.

Goodhue designed the Nebraska State Capitol in a roughly Classical architectural style, and he felt "impelled to produce something quite unlike the usual...thing of the sort, with its veneered order and invariable Roman dome." Goodhue employed Classical principles of geometric form and hierarchical arrangement but eliminated the traditional use of columns, pediments, and domes. In addition to the restrained Classical vocabulary, Goodhue mixed elements of Achaemenid, Assyrian, Byzantine, Gothic, and Romanesque architecture.

Goodhue was a well-established church architect. He designed St. Bartholomew's Church (New York), the West Point Cadet Chapel, and the Church of the Intercession (New York). The Nebraska State Capitol features similar church vocabulary. The plan is a modified cross-in-square plan enclosed by a 437-foot (133 m) square. Four arms radiate from a central domed rotunda, upon which rises the tower with its unarticulated windows and flat surfaces—much like an enlarged spire.

In March 1922, the Capitol Commission built an electric railroad spur from Lincoln's Burlington yards. The state-owned line ran along H Street from 7th to 14th Streets and provided an easy means for delivery of construction materials. Then on April 15, 1922, Governor Samuel R. McKelvie ceremonially broke ground, thus beginning a ten-year construction process which occurred in four phases. Building in phases allowed construction to commence before demolition of the old statehouse. With completion of the capitol's Phase 1 in 1924, state operations moved into the new structure. The old capitol was subsequently razed. On April 23, 1924—just two years into the capitol's construction—Bertram Goodhue died, and his associates formed a firm, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue Associates, to finish the capitol and other ongoing Goodhue projects. After construction ended in 1932, the Capitol Commission hired Lincoln landscape architect Ernst Herminghaus to design the grounds.

Bertram Goodhue employed two New York artists, Lee Lawrie and Hildreth Meière, in both the exterior and interior ornamentation of the Nebraska State Capitol. Lawrie, a sculptor, designed all of the engaged relief panels and buttress figures of the exterior, along with interior column capitals, doors, and fireplace surrounds. Meière, a muralist, designed the marble mosaic panels of the floors and the ceramic tile panels of the vaults.

On January 20, 1922, the Capitol Commission requested Goodhue to consult with Dr. Hartley Burr Alexander, of the University of Nebraska's department of philosophy, "to work out the inscriptions to be used on the Capitol Building." In addition to the inscriptions, Alexander began to work closely with Goodhue and Lawrie on the themes of the exterior sculptures. When Goodhue died in 1924, Alexander feared that the thematic development in future portions of the capitol would be inconsistent with the established schemes. He therefore wrote an overarching thematic program, "Nebraska State Capitol: Synopsis of Decorations and Inscriptions," in July 1926.[a] Alexander's synopsis thus served as a guide for the remaining interior and exterior decorations, and Alexander was bestowed with the title of Thematic Consultant.

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