Nebraska State Capitol

The Nebraska State Capitol is the seat of government of the U.S. state of Nebraska and is located in downtown Lincoln. Designed by New York architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue in 1920, it 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 unicameral state legislature in the United States.
The Nebraska State Capitol's tower is the tallest building in the state outside of Omaha and can be seen 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.

Dimensions and features

The structure is anchored by a three-story, square base. This square base houses offices most frequently visited by the public. The second 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, crowned by a gold-tiled dome. The finial—The Sower and its pedestal—add an additional to the building's height. Common measurements list the capitol at, making it the second-tallest U.S. statehouse, surpassed only by the 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 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. Memorial Chamber on the 14th floor—the highest publicly accessible level—has four observation decks that offer views of Lincoln from 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 Woodmen Tower in downtown Omaha. With the completion of Omaha's First National Bank Tower in 2002, the capitol became the third-tallest building in Nebraska.

Previous capitol buildings

In Omaha

officially opened Nebraska Territory with the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854. Almost instantly a factional divide between North Platters and South Platters 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 1857–1858 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 Lincoln

In June 1867, the Third Session of the State Legislature passed Senate Bill Number 44 which "provid 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 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. 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 the construction of a third state capitol.

Current building

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.

Competition program

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, John Latenser & Sons, and John McDonald and Alan McDonald to compete in the final stage. Next the commission opened the final stage to nationally known architects including: Bliss & Faville, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, H. Van Buren Magonigle, McKim, Mead, and White, John Russell Pope, Tracy & Swartwout, and Paul Cret and Zantzinger, Borie and Medary.
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's design

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, the West Point Cadet Chapel, and the Church of the Intercession. The Nebraska State Capitol features similar church vocabulary. The plan is a modified cross-in-square plan enclosed by a 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.