STONES FOR A CAPITOL: THE BUILDING AND DECORATIVE STONES OF THE NEBRASKA CAPITOL

The stunning Art Deco Nebraska Capitol (constructed between 1922 and 1932) is notable for its innovative design utilizing weight-bearing masonry of Indiana limestone (Salem limestone) and brick, its extensive use of decorative stone from localities in North America and Europe, and the vibrant paleontological iconography of its rotunda. Its architect, Bertram Goodhue (1869–1924), was given a mandate, unusual for the time, allowing him to develop an innovative design and to use high-quality materials. Choice of Indiana limestone must have been influenced by Goodhue’s previous experience with this stone, but this stone was also in general use for cladding of tall buildings at the time. The choice of interior decorative stone appears to have been dependent in great part on types of stone available from the Tompkins-Kiel Marble Company, a major stone importer and wholesale distributor. About 40 types of stone were used for this building, most in the interior. These include outstanding examples of the use of Indiana limestone, Ridgeway bluestone (a Devonian greywacke from Pennsylvania); Yellow Kasota stone (Oneota Dolostone), Napoleon Gray marble (Burlington-Keokuk Limestones undivided), Belgian Black marble (Devonomississippian limestone from Belgium), Portoro marble (Triassic limestone from the Port Venere area of Italy), Red Verona marble (Jurassic limestone from the Rosso Ammonitico of Italy), and Verde Antique from North America and Europe. Many of the stones used are included in an illustrated Tompkins-Kiel Marble catalog identified by their then-current commercial names. Two of the French stones used in the capitol were noted in a precedent-setting 1926 U.S. Court of Customs Appeal case, United States v. Tompkins Kiel Marble Co., in which the company argued that certain commercial “marbles” were not actually marble, but varieties of limestone.

Several limestones used for the capitol are rich in body and trace fossils. Some of larger fossils (intricate bryozoan colonies) are in the coarser grained Indiana limestoneespecially chosen for the lower part of the building’s exterior, giving it a more organic, less concrete-like appearance. Other fossils (ammonites, gastropods) help to verify the identity of various stones, including stone reused from a previous capitol building.