Town of the Week

Lincoln, Nebraska
March 25, 2000

Head over to Lincoln, Nebraska; just listen in.

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This town was a Capital even before it was a sizeable village. Dominating the city's skyline is a gleaming white-stone shaft rising up from the state capitol 400 feet in the air. Imagine a tower on the plains.

Lincoln, Nebraska was located at the eastern edge of the great American desert, and at the western edge of known cultivable land on a small saline stream. This little pinpoint on the prairie lacked firewood, building stone and surface water. But Lincoln had state and county offices, the state university, a penitentiary, and state hospital.

When the railroad came along in 1870, the town's future was secured. William Jennings Bryant was elected to Congress from Lincoln, when he made his famous cross of gold speech to the Democratic National Convention in 1896. Charles Lindbergh attended flight school at the town's airport in 1922, the same year Lincoln's Willa Cather won the Pulitzer Prize.

In 1930, the Lincoln National Bank and Trust was robbed by three men of $2 million in currency and bonds, which was a record at that time. Just north of the university campus is the Nebraska State Fairgrounds. Popular attractions in town beside Cornhusker Football are Wilderness Park with 17 miles of trails; Pioneer's Park; and Holmes Park Lake. Its our Town of the Week, Lincoln, Nebraska.