13 Architectural Curiosities

Architecture inspires, and it comes from a place of inspiration. Throughout history, Nebraska’s wide-open spaces have provided opportunities for innovative builders to erect structures that address their family and community’s needs and aspirations. Nebraskans have built grocery stores and churches from straw bales, experimented with unusual shapes to ensure safety for their people, and sometimes just delighted in being a little whimsical. Because what’s the good life without having a little fun?

A design for the facade of Nebraska’s new capitol building landed on Dr. Hartley Burr Alexander’s desk in Lincoln. It depicted bison with wings. Clearly, he had a letter to write.

Alexander reminded New York architect Bertram Goodhue of the architect’s original intent: to create a building that reflected Nebraska’s history and culture. Nothing superfluous. That vision was what had landed Goodhue the job. Wings might be fine on a Middle Eastern lion or bull, but bison were a sacred symbol to Nebraska’s Indigenous people that required no embellishment.

Alexander was a University of Nebraska professor of philosophy and a polymath. At a time when Indigenous stories were rarely included in public imagery, Alexander advocated for it to be a major part of the capitol building. He’d been brought onto Goodhue’s team after the Capitol Commission, which oversaw construction, said the New York-based Goodhue needed a local guy. Specifically, Goodhue needed Alexander.

The knowledgeable Nebraskan helped organize 3,000 years of history into a streamlined storyline.

“Alexander provided power steering to something that was like wrestling a bear to direct,” said Bob Ripley, capitol administrator for Nebraska Capitol Commission.

The professor determined that the exterior of the building would feature the evolution of democratic values, beginning with ancient Hebrew and Greek elements. The interior would explore the natural and human history of Nebraska from the time of Indigenous habitation to introduction and integration of Europeans, Africans and Asians. The result?

“The capitol is like a three-dimensional history book about Nebraska,” Ripley said. 

Alexander kept the Nebraska storylines faithful. He wanted people to feel pride in a building that represented all Nebraskans.

And today in Lincoln, the only buffalo wings are the ones served at bars.

The skinny rider with no facial hair yet to speak of urged his horse onward. The  mochila – Spanish for backpack – attached to the saddle held fast. Inside it was mail from the East.  The horse had only traveled five miles, but it perspired with effort. The beast would have to go hard for another 10 to the station. There, it would rest. But not the boy. Not yet. He’d have two minutes to put the backpack on a fresh horse and mount up. Then he’d continue his ride through the land that would someday become known as the state of Nebraska. He’d ride to the next station and switch horses. Then he’d do it again. After 100 miles of this effort, another courier would take his place.

Not many businesses that last less than two years make their mark on history. The Pony Express continues to capture imaginations 160 years later. The experiment to quickly deliver mail in the rugged West played out against the drama of a nation edging toward the brink of civil war. These stories are told in Gothenburg, at one of the few remaining Pony Express Stations in the United States.

After being donated to the city of Gothenburg by a local landowner, workers disassembled, moved and reassembled the Sam Machette station in 1931. There is another station in Gothenburg, but it remains on private land.

Today the museum welcomes more than 20,000 visitors a year and another 15,000 come during off hours to view the outside of the building. Gothenburg shows its pony pride with horse emblems throughout the city, including on police uniforms.

The rectangular cabin features rough wooden planks that have weathered more than a century and a half of Nebraska’s often brutal weather. Peering out small windows, it’s easy to imagine looking for an incoming rider. Handsome wooden beams grace the ceiling.

The Pony Express may have lost its business to the newly developed transcontinental telegraph, but the station in Gothenburg keeps the spirit of commerce alive by selling local Nebraska goods.

Johnson Lake, located 10 miles south of Lexington, boasts two lighthouses.

Members of the community erected a 14-foot replica of the Montauk, New York Lighthouse in 2018 as a tribute to deceased loved ones. The Johnson Lake Chamber of Commerce and the community held a fundraiser and a garage sale to fund that first candy cane-striped structure, which they put on a jetty. It stands 14 feet tall on a 2-foot base. It was made by Amish in Pennsylvania. 

In 2020, community members pitched in again for the second black and whitbeauty. Late-evening boaters enjoy illumination on their way home. It just goes to show that when people work together, they shine brighter.

Linoma Beach

A lighthouse looms just off highway 6 between Omaha and Lincoln. Once, this 100-foot structure lured automobile tourists to the Linoma Beach resort. Families pulled over to wade in the man-made lake and picnic in the shade of maple trees.

Developers completed the Linoma Beach Lighthouse in 1939 to appeal to this new traffic. Constructed of wood and metal, the octagonal building had a filling station on the main floor, observation decks, and a lighthouse beacon. A central staircase spiraled up the interior leading to rooms on different floors. 

When World War II ended, the lighthouse beacon flashed dot-dot-dot-dash. V for victory in Morse Code.

The area is now a privately owned RV camp.

Lake Minatare and Kearney

Mothers searched pantries. Unemployed men stood listlessly in the doorways of their homes. It was the mid-1930s, and although the New Deal had created some economic recovery, President Franklin D. Roosevelt believed more could be done.

The creation of the Works Progress Administration was part of the Second New Deal. The WPA employed men to build public infrastructure across the nation. The lighthouses at Lake Minatare in Scotts Bluff County and in Kearney’s Harmon Park were both WPA projects.

Workers constructed Lake Minatare’s lighthouse from native stone. Visitors can climb a spiral staircase up 55 feet to take in views of the gorgeous 2,158-acre manmade lake originally completed as part of an irrigation project.   

Kearney’s lighthouse in Harmon Park has an external staircase to climb for a view of the rock garden and a scenic pool below. Some people have fun speculating about what’s behind the gated door. It feels like a scene from a fairytale.

Although neither lightouse ever emanated light, their construction provided a ray of hope during a dark time in history.

Teachers and administrators at Cody-Kilgore were worried. Like many rural parts of the state, student enrollment was declining. A committee of educators learned that some parents didn’t send their kids to school in in town because there wasn’t a grocery store. Better to just drop kids off at a school in a place where they could also do their shopping. The community needed to think big to solve their problem. The community needed to build a grocery store.

The idea was wild, but it made sense. And as long as they were thinking outside of the box, why not make it a community effort led, in part, by the students? Inspired by another local business, the students built a straw bale building. They tore apart 1,300-pound round bales that they square baled, set up, stuccoed and cemented.

From the outside, there’s nothing too fancy about the 3,500-square-feet structure, but it’s nicely insulated thanks to all that straw. A smart little C surrounded by a circle adorns the exterior, and students sometimes decorate the wooden fence posts outside the façade.

After the kids finished building the store, their work wasn’t done. Today, they work the registers, stock and rotate the shelves, and help with ordering, accounting and pricing. “The grocery store is the vital heartbeat of the community,” said Liz Ravenscroft, store manager and business teacher.

Visitors to Lauritzen Gardens may stumble upon an enchanting hexagonal gazebo off a lesser traveled path between the Victorian Garden and the Garden of Memories. Past a grove of sweet-smelling magnolia trees, there is a wooden latticed structure with a curvaceous red metallic roof. The roof is adorned with an ornate cupola. 

It is likely the last remaining structure from Omaha’s 1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, an event that aimed to sell the nation on the glories of the West.

After that successful expo, Omaha investors raised enough funds to buy the grounds and its temporary structures for a second event, the Greater America Exposition of 1899.

It’s believed the Storz Brewing Co. used the gazebo as a bierstubee – or beer room – for one or both expositions before it was later retired to the lawn of The Gottlieb Storz House for nearly 100 years.

Wayne and Rhonda Stuberg, later owners of the Storz house, gifted the structure to the Lauritzen Gardens. It was relocated and restored in 2012. 

It’s a quiet place to sit and reflect on new buds and deep roots.

After the final fireworks lit up Seward’s sky, parents draped tired children over their shoulders. Happy, sweaty, maybe sticky with something sweet, the families piled into cars to drive home, concluding another celebration in Nebraska’s Fourth of July town.

Seward is a place that values its heritage and history. Little wonder then that it’s also home to the World’s Largest Time Capsule. Furniture store owner Harold Davisson dug a hole in his yard for a 45-ton concrete vault. He filled it with 5,000 items, including people’s letters, coins, stamps, alcohol, a bikini bottom, a motorcycle and a yellow Chevy Vega and dedicated it in 1975 with a planned opening for 2025.

In 1983, Davisson added the pyramid top to the capsule along with an additional car and other items. He died in 1999, but his structure continues to delight and intrigue visitors to Seward. Stay tuned, dear readers – Nebraska Life will cover the opening in three years.

Central City is a growing community in tornado country without a high-capacity storm shelter.

“Our water table is high here. We don’t have a lot of crawl spaces or basements  for protection,” said Jeff Jensen, superintendent of Central City Public Schools.

His district is also one with increasing needs. So when considering construction of a new gymnasium, Central City Public School leaders became enamored with the concept of a monolithic dome - a structure made of steel-reinforced concrete that can withstand winds up to 250 mph. It would be more affordable to build than a traditional structure and could double as a storm shelter, like those in neighboring Kansas and Missouri.

Another bonus: it could be eligible for FEMA dollars. Within half a mile, just under 3,000 people could find safety in the gym-shelter. After Jensen and others wrote and rewrote several grants and bounced between federal and state agencies for years, the district received approval for just under $4 million in FEMA funds for the project.

They inflated the dome in November 2021 and pressurized it. Structural foam, rebar and concrete followed. Federal funds cover 75% of the structure. To complete the project, the district borrowed money at 1% and relied on private donations to close the gap for scoreboards, gym floor and lockers.

Because this creative project is the result of community cooperation and buy-in, Jensen hopes to put “Central City” on top of the dome. And, if it can hold up to storms that rage so furiously, it can definitely handle the cheering of enthusiastic Bison fans.

Nebraska pioneers employed boldness and hope to survive and thrive in their new homeland. In 1963, their Grand
Island descendants hired architect Edward Durell Stone to reflect that pioneer spirit with a commemorative museum.

Stone – who designed the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. – created the Leo B. Stuhr building for Grand Island. It showcases the International style of architecture and is Stone’s only Nebraska work.

Situated on the museum grounds’ 200 acres, a smooth white symmetrical concrete structure graces the surrounding prairie. From the plane on his way to the building site, Stone was smitten with the view
below of fields and the meandering Platte River. He reflected these elements in his design, said Chris Hochstetler, executive director of the museum. The building is a mosaic of squares and concentric squares, like fields. A moat encircles the building,  as a river might. Visitors cross a bridge, admiring wild ducks, geese and blue heron, to the double glass doors. Private donors came to the rescue again decades after the building’s initial construction in 1967, financing a $7 million “Gem of the Prairie” restoration completed in 2015.

The effort refurbished the facade, restored the original 10-feet door height and installed clear tempered glass around indoor pools, replacing rails, to make it look as Stone envisioned it. Floor vents replaced radiators, new roofing and
updated electrical and mechanical systems were installed.

Hochstetler said the building feels like it belongs in Nebraska, in part because it’s so surprising. “There’s a moment when you encounter something you think shouldn’t be there, but it impacts you so powerfully, you know it needs to be there. This building has concreted itself as part of the prairie.”

In 1928 Congregationalists in Arthur worked together to build their church. There weren’t many trees in that part of the state, and the earth was unsuitable for sod houses. But the Sandhills offered all the materials the church members would need.

With prairie grass, domestic hay and mud, plaster and stucco, they built their place of worship. The rectangular building is one and a half stories tall with a small vestibule, seven rows of pews in two aisles, and an altar platform. Behind the altar platform, is a kitchen and parlor with a staircase leading to two sleeping rooms. This served as the pastor’s residence and was also a place where Sunday school was held.

After the church closed its doors, the Arthur County Historical Society took over the building. The society completed restoration work on the church’s exterior in 1976 and began operating it as a museum. Pilgrim Holiness Church was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. It is the oldest baled straw structure in Nebraska.

Cape whirling, Frank Lloyd Wright arrived at the only building design of his built in Nebraska and declared it an abomination. Owner Elizabeth Sutton had made changes Wright hadn’t approved of and aroused the man’s ire.

It wasn’t the first time the two had locked horns, but it would be the last. When Wright billed the Suttons after the house’s completion, the amount was twice what the architect had bid.

The Sutton House was built between 1905 and 1908 in Wright’s “Prairie Style.” The home boasts an open floor plan from dining room to living plan – rare for its day – and a nearly hidden main entrance for privacy. Windows allow light in while preventing outside eyes from peeping. Most distinct is the home’s cantilevered veranda roof that juts out without visible supports. That structure was damaged by a fire in 1932, but later owners restored the home to Wright’s original vision and have plans for it to remain that way.

There’s a new Hobbit house but it’s not in the Shire. It’s in South Sioux City. Taking a page from J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel, Darwin and Maureen Knecht recently opened Covington Cottage.

Darwin worked alongside son-in-law Jacob Metz for 14 months to build the residence with features that include round doors, a grass roof, wooden roof beams, an electric fireplace, and a load-bearing tree stump. Marilyn outfitted it with homey rugs, arts and Hobbit-like artifacts, books and games.

The Knechts dubbed their new place Covington Cottage. It sits on five landscaped acres adjacent to the couple’s other’s Airbnb, a treehouse, and their coffeeshop, which is open to the public.

They hold events open to the community on the grounds, such as yoga and live music, and rent the space out for private parties and events. That’s very much in the spirit of Bilbo Baggins:

“If ever you are passing my way, don’t wait to knock! Tea is at four; but any of you are welcome at any time!”

Was he a Nebraskan in disguise?