Lincoln (Neb.) -- Guidebooks; Lincoln (Neb.) -- History
Among other things which have drawn attention to this city of 81,000 are
its illustrious one-time citizens. From the home base of Lincoln William
Jennings Bryan spattered the country with silver words about the silver
standard. General Pershing was one of the Atlases on whose shoulders the
weight of the first World war rested. Charles G. Dawes, a dynamic young
lawyer of Lincoln in the 80’s, eventually became a vice president. Willa
Cather, precocious university student in the 90’s, at the height of her
writing career was conceded to be this country’s most gifted woman
writer. Charles Lindbergh is claimed by Lincoln after a fashion and with
some degree of justification. It was here that he learned the art of
flying, after trundling into town unobtrusively on a day in April—April
Fool’s day in fact—1922. And there are many other notables whose names
are in some way linked with the city.
The famous sculptor, Daniel Chester French, left behind him several
famous statues of Abraham Lincoln. One of these has stood on the capitol
grounds since its dedication, Sept. 2, 1912. As the new, and fifth,
Nebraska capitol burgeoned slowly it elbowed off the grounds every
vestige of the outgrown capitol with one exception—the Lincoln statue.
It is something difficult to outgrow.
No. 3—Old Butler Mansion
[Illustration: {uncaptioned}]
Lincoln was chosen as the capital of Nebraska in the summer of 1867 by
three young men, David Butler, John Gillespie and Thomas Kennard, who
had been named as a commission to do this task. They have become almost
legendary figures in the minds of Nebraskans—three men in tall silk hats
silhouetted against the prairie sky as they pounded their ponies over
the countryside in search of a capital site.
They were very actual people, however; Butler was the state of
Nebraska’s first governor; Thomas Kennard, first secretary of state and
Gillespie first state auditor. Interestingly, the homes built by these
three men still stand, perhaps the three oldest houses in Lincoln.
Herewith is shown the one-time mansion of Governor Butler, which has
stood at Seventh and Washington for almost 75 years. At that time of
course there were no such streets. The mansion was a country home, from
which the governor drove to the capitol and back in state.
The original house was square and high. Built of blocks of brown stone
with a cupola and a front stoop instead of a porch it was considered
very imposing. Here Governor Butler lived from about 1867 until his
impeachment in 1871. The impeachment by the legislature came about
because of Butler’s borrowing $17,000 from the school fund. Land which
he had deeded to the state was said to have more than paid in value the
amount borrowed, and great bitterness resulted from the legislature’s
action.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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