Centennial Mall

In 1922 Capitol architect Bertram Goodhue proposed a seven-block wide avenue to create a more formal entrance to the north side of the Capitol building. Fifteen years later, city and state leaders designated a 120-foot wide right-of-way from the Capitol to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. A commission was created to help create the Mall. However, progress and construction on the Centennial Mall came to a halt for the next few decades.

By 1967 Centennial Mall was built to commemorate Nebraska’s centennial year and extended from the Capitol to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus.

The City and State commissioned a master plan in 1997, this commission envisioned the Spirit of Nebraska Mall. The plan called for closing all seven blocks of the Mall and an ensuing revitalization. However, the redevelopment failed due to lack of funding. Thus, the Centennial Mall fell into disrepair for the next ten years.

The City of Lincoln made $3 million of funding available for improvements to Nebraska’s Centennial Mall in 2009. This was the first time that funding was made available to the city specifically for the purpose of Centennial Mall revitalization. The Centennial Mall campaign committee was formed as well, to increase fundraising efforts.

By 2017, the refurbished Centennial Mall was completed, just in time for Nebraska’s 150th year. It is a celebration of Nebraska’s spirit throughout the years, from its ancient Native beginnings to the technology that is shaping the future.

Lincoln's parks and public gardens have provided beautiful backdrops for generations of family photos. When you or your photographer are taking pictures, we ask that you be mindful of, and minimize disruption to, other park users and garden visitors. Please also take care to avoid damaging any flowers, plantings, turf, or park property.

If your photo shoot is large and/or it could disrupt normal park or public garden operations, you make need to seek a Special Use Permit. If fees for photography services are collected on site, a Permit to Conduct Business may be required. Wedding reservations are available at our wedding designated sites. Please contact 402-441-7847, Ext. 0, or email parks@lincoln.ne.gov, for additional information regarding both Special Use Permit and wedding reservations.

Thank you and enjoy those beautiful pictures!

We the People ("K" to "L" Streets)

Our Home Nebraska ("L" to "M" Streets)

A bronze sculpture of trailblazing Nebraska Native American physician Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, a member of the Omaha Tribe and the first Native American in the United States to earn a degree to become a medical doctor. The statue shows the doctor in a traditional Omaha period dress toting her medical bag standing tall on a limestone platform next to the Scottish Rite Temple across from the State Office building between L and M streets. 

Dedication of the sculpture was on Monday, October, 11, Indigenous Peoples Day, on Centennial Mall. The sculpture is funded by a generous local donor.

About Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte

Centennial Mall was created to celebrate Nebraska’s 100th birthday in 1967. The Capitol and University of Nebraska-Lincoln downtown campus are linked the seven block pedestrian friendly Mall. Along the way walkers will find sculpture, signage, fountains and other features which represent Nebraska’s history and people. Reminders of Nebraska’s first People are incorporated throughout the design. This walking tour will help visitors walking along the Centennial Mall identify Native American themes.

Presentation Slides

 This text is pulled from "A Walking Tour of Native Americans on Centennial Mall" presentation slides.

The Nebraska State Capitol:

New York architect Bertram Goodhue designed the Nebraska State Capitol to artistically represent the state and its people. The broad low base mirrors the vast open prairie and the tower rises with the hopes and dreams of those who have and will call Nebraska home.

Inside, Hildreth Meiere’s floor and ceiling mosaics, and outside, Lee Lawrie’s relief sculptures tell the story of Nebraska’s first People and the pioneers who came later.

Nebraska, from the Otoe-Missouria “Ni Brathge” (nee BRAHTH-gay) means ‘flat water’. In 1867 the state was created from lands with historic and regional connections to the Pawnee, Ponca, Omaha, Otoe-Missouria, Iowa, Winnebago, Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara, Arapaho and Cheyenne, Pottawatomie, Sac and Fox, Kickapoo, and Lakota, Dakota and Santee Sioux Tribes.

Today the Omaha, Winnebago, and Santee Sioux have reservations in Nebraska. The Northern Ponca hold tribal land in trust.

Land acknowledgements remind all Nebraskans our state is the past, present and future home of native Americans.

Professor of Philosophy Hartley Burr Alexander, thematic consultant for the Capitol acknowledged Nebraska’s native American heritage in the inscriptions and artwork. The names of tribes associated with Nebraska were carved in sculptor Lee Lawrie’s relief panels on the north entrance stairs of the Capitol during the 1922-1932 construction. Also carved on the relief panels of the bison bull, and cow and calf are native American poems and prayers.

The Capitol’s main north entrance decoration represents Nebraska’s first People with bundles of corn and bison skulls forming a banner across the portal, hexagonal corn medallions decorating the arch.

The bronze entrance doors have motifs of bison and arrows. Native American hunters, a wolf, and pronghorn also decorate the doors.

Nebraska’s Hall of Fame, located on 2nd floor of the Capitol, includes Native American members.

• Suzette LaFlesche Tibbles, Omaha Translator for Standing Bear Native American Rights Advocate
• Standing Bear, Ponca Chief, Native American Rights Activist
• Red Cloud, Oglala Lakota Statesman

The State of Nebraska honored Ponca Chief Standing Bear west of the Capitol by naming an office building the Chief Standing Bear Justice Administration Building.

In 1879, Ponca Chief Standing Bear sued the United States of American won the right to be considered a citizen and live freely in Nebraska. The Trial of Standing Bear is portrayed in a mural by Stephen Roberts on the 14th floor of the Capitol.

Ben Victor sculpted the bust of Standing Bear from a photograph of the Ponca Chief wearing his signature bear claw necklace and a fur headdress. B/W portraits of Chief Standing Bear. Photograph courtesy of Oklahoma Historical Society.

Outside the Capitol

In his 1920 design Capitol architect Bertram Goodhue envisioned four wide on-axis boulevards radiating out from the Capitol. To the north, Centennial Mall was created in 1967 to celebrate Nebraska’s 100th birthday. It connects the Capitol and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Each of the four plazas on Centennial Mall celebrates a unique aspect of the state. One continuous theme along the Mall is native American life in Nebraska.

Using artistic detail from the Capitol, including the bronze bison medallions in the north door and the Thunderbird mosaic beneath the gold dome of the Capitol, Centennial Mall designers included Capitol designs in the paving and educational signage along the mall.

The bison is recreated in the granite stone paving at the sidewalk intersections and in bronze plaques identifying important people and facts of Nebraska.

The Thunderbird represents life-giving rain, important to native American and pioneer agriculture, and the design is used in the Mall’s sidewalk paving. The pattern of the Thunderbird mosaic on top of the Capitol is similar to traditional loom bead weaving done by native Americans.

Centennial Mall

Across K Street from the Capitol’s main entrance, Capitol Fountain Plaza features two rows of fir trees which visually extend the landscape of the Capitol onto the mall. The planters on the plaza contain a grass native to the vast prairie the pioneers encountered. The landscaping of Centennial Mall incorporates native flora.

Capitol Fountain features water jets which splash a huge Nebraska State Seal.

Along the sidewalks leading north are plaques featuring members of Nebraska’s Hall of Fame.

In the next block across L Street, Nebraska Heritage Plaza, features a map of Nebraska and the Missouri River Fountain. Major rivers, trails and railroads are identified inside the outline of Nebraska.

Nebraska’s 93 counties are identified in pavers on either side of the plaza and county seats are located with stars on the state map.

Heritage Plaza pays tribute to the native Americans associated with Nebraska. Pavers along the sidewalk feature the names of the tribes and native leaders.

The Nebraska section of the Ponca Trail of Tears, followed as the Ponca were forcibly moved to Oklahoma in 1877, is identified on the state map by bear tracks. Nearby, just northeast of those marks are fountain jets representing the Missouri River, Nebraska’s eastern border.

Nebraska is home to four tribal nations. These tribes migrated to Nebraska from the the Ohio River Valley and the Great Lakes regions. The name Omaha means “against the current” and recognizes they split off from other tribal groups and traveled up the Missouri River, against the current, to make a new home in Nebraska. The Omaha name is written in the Omaha language on a Heritage Plaza bench. Other tribes of Nebraska, Ponca, Santee Sioux and Winnebago are also named in their native languages.

A statue of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, is located on the plaza. It was created by Ben Victor who sculpted the Standing Bear bust west of the Capitol. Dr. Susan is the sister of native rights advocate Suzette La Flesche Tibbles who was Chief Standing Bear’s translator in the trial that recognized his personhood and US citizenship.

Continue 3 blocks north along 15^th street to the History Nebraska Museum, additional sidewalk pavers on the way identify important Nebraskans.

North of the museum across P Street, on the Imagination to Innovation Plaza, recognition of native Americans continues. The sides of the limestone seating blocks feature native symbols: sun, deer, spirit, wind, sky, star, buffalo, and rain.

Limestone walls along the stepped plaza are engraved with native words describing the figures on the blocks.

Prominent on the plaza is a second casting of Ben Victor’s sculpture of Standing Bear created for Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol. The sculpture portrays the point in the trial where Standing Bear addresses Judge Dundy with the words carved on the panel behind the sculpture, a scene also portrayed in the Capitol’s colorful Memorial Chamber mural by Stephen Roberts.

Near the Standing Bear sculpture a Light Circle in the shape of a native American medicine wheel has pavers with the names of 27 native American tribes with ties to Nebraska. Around the circle and along the sidewalks, plants native to the Great Plains and used by native people for paints, medicines, healing and other purposes are interplanted with native grasses.

The tribes named in the circle include those with reservations in Nebraska or tribes in neighboring states with land in Nebraska. From the center of the Medicine Wheel, the view back down Centennial Mall toward the Capitol fulfills Capitol architect Bertram Goodhue’s vision of a wide boulevard with the Capitol’s tower and gold dome as the focus. Lee Lawrie’s statue of The Sower emphasizes that agriculture was the foundation of native American and pioneer civilizations in Nebraska.