Historic and Descriptive Review of Nebraska

LINCOLN

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down. This early attention to educational matters seems a prophetic delineation of the proud position Lincoln holds to-day as an educational center.
January 11, 1868, the contract was let for building the State House, for $49,000. The walls were constructed of magnesian limestone, from the Beatrice quarries in Gage County. In December it was sufficiently complete to receive the State archives. In 1879 the building was found too small, and the west wing was built. In 1881 a bill was passed to add a wing on the east also. This was hardly completed when it was seen the center of the building was dwarfed by the wings, and it was voted to enlarge it and also the tower. These

improvements were completed in 1889, the total money spent on the State House from the first being $1,002,000.
     The first building of the State University was completed in 1870 at a cost of $50,000; the various additions that have since been made have run up the total cost to the State $240,000. The Agricultural College cost $40,000. The penitentiary, commenced in 1870, cost $265,000. The Insane Asylum, with 480 acres and a capacity for 350 inmates, cost $275 000, and the Home of the Friendless $28,000.
     In July, 1870, the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad was completed to Lincoln, and the State Journal commenced its daily edition.
     In 1871, owing to the impeachment trial of Gov. Butler, a fear was entertained that the location of the capital was illegal. After the new constitution of 1875 was adopted all fears vanished, and real estate, which then received

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NEBRASKA'S ENTERPRISING CITIES.

a set-back has steadily advanced in price. In 1872 Lincoln had five railroads, now she has eleven, radiating from as many different points of the compass.

The city library was founded in 1875 by private individuals and was taken under municipal control in 1877, it contained then 1,150 volumes; it now has over 9,000 and the reading room is furnished with between eighty and ninety periodicals. The library is absolutely free to the citizens and for 1891 the aggregate circulation was 61,236.
The state library located in the capitol is devoted to law books, public documents and records. The working material consists of 25 000 volumes and the collection of law re-

ports from the courts of last resort in every state and territory and of the federal supreme court are as complete as it is possible to make them. Also a nearly complete collection of the English reports from the time of the year books down to the present time. It has also the Scotch, Irish and Canadian reports and it is the contemplation of the management to get those of Australia and the British Colonies. The British statute law has the complete acts of parliament from the earliest times as we as those of her colonial legislatures. There also a collection of codes and statutes now in force in most of the European countries. There are 1,500 volumes of treaties upon special branches of the law. The management expect in a year or two to have a copy of every law book published.


© 2002 for the NEGenWeb Project by Pam Rietsch, Ted & Carole Miller