Lincoln Audioguides

Lincoln, Nebraska is a university town and state capital doing an honest job of being both simultaneously. The Nebraska State Capitol building, completed in 1932, is the most surprising skyscraper on the Great Plains: a 400-foot art deco tower with a gilded dome and a bronze figure called 'The Sower' at its crown, surrounded by exterior sculptures and mosaics that were decades ahead of what most American state capitals were commissioning. Bertram Goodhue's design was deliberately unconventional, and it remains one of the most significant public buildings in America outside the coasts.

The University of Nebraska, which traces its founding to 1869, shapes the city's rhythm in ways that go beyond game day Saturdays at Memorial Stadium.

The Sheldon Museum of Art on the campus holds a collection of 20th-century American art disproportionate to Lincoln's size, with works by Mark Rothko, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Winslow Homer in spaces that are generally uncrowded. The Haymarket District, a collection of renovated brick warehouses from the 1880s on the western edge of downtown, has become the city's main outdoor social zone, with the Farmer's Market running Saturday mornings from May through October.