Lincoln, NE

Seeking out more Americana – from the world’s largest, to the tiniest of places, but all roads lead to the centre of everything !

Although our next stop, tonight in Lincoln, was only a 2 hour drive along the I-80 from Kearney, you should know by now that we did not take that route. We still had a few quirks up our sleeve !

Having seen the geographic center of North America near Rugby, North Dakota and the geographic center of the entire U.S. near Belle Fourche in South Dakota, we now had to hunt out another “geographic center” – of the contiguous 48 states – conveniently not too far away from Kearney, near Lebanon in Kansas !

And time – or in this case measurement of geographic centers – does not stand still ! Although there have been different definitions offered for “the geographic center”, an intuitive one, and one used by the US Geological Survey (USGS), is “the center of gravity of the surface, or that point on which the surface of the area would balance if it were a plane of uniform thickness.” It was derived by minimizing the sum of squared great circle distances from all points of land in a state (including islands, but not coastal waters, following the earlier practice of the USGS). Got that !??!%

Thus, of course, there is now an updated list of geographic centers using this definition ! It represents a slight improvement over the list originally published. So the geographic center of the contiguous United States, determined in this way, is (at the moment anyway !) 2.7 miles from Agra, Kansas, 4.7 miles from Kensington, Kansas, and 27.9 great circle miles west of the longstanding designated center of Lebanon, Kansas ! So we drove all through there on the way to Lebanon to make sure we covered all (current) bases !

Being totally tangled up with all that, what could be more appropriate for our next stop than the “World’s Largest Ball of Twine”, in Cawker City, Kansas !

Frank Stoeber started the ball next to his barn on his local farm in 1953. In just 4 years the giant ball of twine weighed 5,000 pounds and stood 8 feet high. Stoeber “gave” the ball to the town in 1961. Each August a “twine-a-thon” is held and additional twine is added by the residents of the community and visitors – this is your chance to be part of one of the World’s Largest Things. The event includes a horseshoe pitching contest, car show, food, and (of course) adding twine to the world’s largest ball. You can arrange to add twine to the World’s Largest Ball Twine by making advance arrangements – unfortunately we failed to !

And just across the road is a “Mini Motel” – in a 1930’s Gas Station ! There are actually two in town and both are apparently on AirBnB as well. So next time you are travelling through Cawker City, you might like to try one of them – they are easy to find, they are the only functioning buildings ! 😂 – not quite !

At this stage, we did actually start heading in the right direction toward Lincoln. South to Kansas then north back to Nebraska, this area must be prime as we both agreed that even though we have seen lots of corn fields, there seemed to be even more today ! – if that’s possible !

Something you probably wouldn’t expect to find in this part of the country is a Nazi POW Camp ! – Camp Concordia was a World War II internment camp for German POWs from May 1, 1943 through until November 8, 1945 when the prisoners headed home. At its height, the camp held over 4,000 Germans. Strategically located in the heartland of America, where prisoners could be employed on local farms, the camp saw only 2 escapes and 8 POW deaths during its operation.

It was hastily built in the spring of 1943, the camp consisted of more than 300 buildings, including a hospital, post, restaurants, fire department, and barracks.

Not quite done with the “World’s Largest”, in the town of Hebron – now back in Nebraska – is the World’s Largest Covered Porch Swing. According to the sign, it is approved by the Guiness Book of Records and it holds 16 adults – it actually looked as if it would hold a few more !

From here it was on to Lincoln. Lincoln is the capital of the state, though like many states it it not a particularly large town ! We were staying at the Embassy Suites located fairly centrally so after checking in we went for a walk. The Haymarket Area is a bit like the Rocks in Sydney and is the old train station area. The new station is a bit further away. There are lots of pubs and restaurants and although a bit quiet mid week it looks like it would be a pretty busy place at weekends.

We then walked up towards the State Capital building. The dome is tiled in gold and, not surprisingly, the figure on the top is a person sowing seeds ! We walked to a section called “Centennial Plaza” which is a pedestrian mall – very pleasant on a hot afternoon !

Nebraska doesn’t have an NFL team so it makes do with a college football team. When I say “makes do”, they are absolute fanatics ! The stadium in the Haymarket area would be as big as any stadium in Australia. Officially it takes 85,000 but it has been sold out for every College (NCAA) game since 1962 ! Every shop, street, buisness etc etc has the bold red “H” logo for the “Huskers”. Driving along I80, there was even a sign post which displays progress scores on game day !

We had an “Evening Reception” so settled in for a couple of drinks and snacks then just ate in the hotel restaurant where we shared calmari for starters and a pizza for main – we had re-packing to get done afterwards as we head back to Omaha tomorrow !

Today’s Tour Trivia – The 911 system of emergency communications, now used nationwide in the USA, was developed and first used in Lincoln, Nebraska