Lincoln stands tall in Nebraska

University of Nebraska State Museum has one of the world’s largest collections of mammal fossils. Courtesy University of Nebraska State Museum

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By Le Datta Grimes

Location: Lincoln is located in the southeast corner of Nebraska along Interstate 80.

Population: 239,000

Sites worth seeing:
The 400-foot-tall state Capitol is home to the nation’s only unicameral legislature. The ornamental interior features numerous marble-columned chambers with vaulted polychrome tile ceilings, marble mosaic floors, and murals depicting the natural and social history of Nebraska’s Native American and pioneer cultures.

A life-size bronze Columbian mammoth embellishes the entrance of the University of Nebraska State Museum, a natural-history museum with one of the world’s largest collections of mammal fossils. In addition, Elephant Hall offers a display of modern and fossil elephants along with a mural of Ice Age mammoths. Other galleries are the Explore Evolution, the Ancient Life, the Plains Indians and the Hall of Nebraska Wildlife.

Restaurants, nightspots, antique shops, art galleries and the first microbrewery in Nebraska are located among restored late-19th- and early-20th-century warehouses in the Historic Haymarket District.

The spirit of the 1800s flows into Iron Horse Park, located on the north side of the historic Burlington railroad depot. A three-dimensional brick mural, Iron Horse Legacy, shows locomotive No. 710 pulling the first train into Lincoln on July 4, 1870. Also on display are a restored CB&Q steam engine, an 1890s water-tower fountain and a reflecting pool.

Fairview, the residence of William Jennings Bryan, former secretary of state and three-time Democratic presidential nominee, has been restored to its early-1900s grandeur.

The Frank H. Woods Telephone Pioneer Museum features replicas of Alexander Graham Bell’s original telephones, a display of wooden wall and candlestick phones, and the colorful art-deco telephone sets of the 1950s and 1960s.

The National Museum of Roller Skating contains the largest collection of roller skates and skating memorabilia in the world, dating back to 1819.

The Great Plains Art Museum has an impressive collection of Western art, including bronzes by Frederic Remington and works on paper by Albert Bierstadt.

The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden houses a comprehensive collection of contemporary American art with work by artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol and Edward Hopper.

Among the more than 2,000 quilts at the International Quilt Study Center is the Robert Cargo Collection of African American Quilts.

See the latest technology in DNA research, microscopy, plant breeding, AIDS virus research and more at the Beadle Center, a nationally recognized life-science research center with top international scientists. Tours of the center include the state-of-the-art research facilities and a greenhouse filled with exotic plants.

Nebraska’s many stories are told in beaded leather and fabric quilts, a Pawnee earth lodge, a World War II living room, a Patriot truck and a Kawasaki motorcycle at the Nebraska State Historical Society’s Museum of Nebraska History.

Events worth attending:
The Lincoln Ethnic Festival, June 22-23, will feature tastes, sights and sounds from around the globe.

Sit on the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery’s west plaza lawn every Tuesday in June and enjoy free Jazz in June by performers from around the country. This year’s schedule features Kendra Shank, June 5; Hot Club of San Francisco, June 12; Stan Kessler and the Sons of Brasil, June 19; and the Nebraska Jazz Orchestra with guest artist Angela Hagenbach, June 26.

The Capital City Ribfest, Aug. 9-12, is a four-day festival with live music, and barbecue and ribs.

Did you know: , Charles Lindbergh learned to fly in Lincoln. He took lessons at Lincoln Airplane and Flying School, where Lincoln Memorial Park is today.

Nebraska’s Capitol is one of only four skyscraper capitols in the United States.

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