707. Lincoln, Lancaster County (NE24)

Good job, 1967. I know this was primarily meant to be utilitarian, so many design flourishes were left out, but it’s still not bad as courthouses go. Both wings, built in 1997, emulate the style well enough that the exterior weathering of the stone is the only immediate indication that they were constructed at different times. The courthouse doesn’t have any war memorials even remotely approaching the scale of Wahoo‘s. Therefore, I can only conclude that Lancaster County obviously hates the troops.

Of course, this could never be the center of political power when it’s a few blocks away from …

… this behemoth.  Welcome to the Nebraska State Capitol.  You know, I usually like to mock other state capitols and talk about how Texas’s Capitol building is so much bigger and cooler, but in this case, I’ll give Nebraska a pass.  I’m suitably impressed with it and feel that “game recognizes game,” as they say in the parlance of our times. 

There are a large number of caches in this county, and I could have picked any of them to be my official cache.  I chose this one for several reasons, including my morning hubris, my normal desire to get in and out of a county quickly, and its location relative to the capitol building.   The primary reason, however, is because of why it’s here.  According to the story in the description, this was the first lamppost cache in Lincoln, and the CO is the father of a former reviewer for the area.  The reviewer, his daughter, hated LPCs so much that she wouldn’t approve them when people hid them.  She also worked at the capitol at the time.  When she stepped down as a reviewer, the CO got with the new reviewer and placed the first LPC in town right next to his daughter’s usual parking spot!  I like to think I can appreciate a good troll as much as the next guy.  I appreciate this one even more as a father of daughters!

I took a little extra time in town to pick up some challenges and a couple of Virtuals in the same cemetery, one placed for a singer who (while I didn’t recognize his name) I had seen in a few movies, and the other for a notorious murderer I had never heard of.  Two more names to add to my list of famous graves (though they will undoubtedly be on the B-roll).  In the fullness of time, the southward journey continued to the edges of…