Pioneers Park
If you’re an outdoor kind of person and you enjoy communing with nature, then the Pioneers Park would be an ideal destination for you and your friends and family when you visit Lincoln Nebraska. With the park open daily until sunset, it is the perfect place for you to spend an entire day out to enjoy all that this landmark of Lincoln has to offer.
The Pioneers Park is a wonderful stretch of land full of trees and greens with splendid art pieces scattered around the entire area. This 1,100 acre park is the place to go to if you want to go on picnics or go hiking with some friends. You can also ride your bikes around if you prefer to be on wheels rather than walking. There is also an outdoor amphitheater where you might just visit in time for a special show or event. As you walk around the park, you can see many small ponds, and even a sled run. A golf course is also available for those who are into a more competitive atmosphere. The Pioneers Park along with the Pioneers Park Nature Center was gifted to the city in 1928 by Mr. and Mrs. John F. Harris. The award winning landscape design was a contribution by Lincoln Nebraska’s very own Ernst Herminghaus. His design for the park has received numerous acknowledgments and was placed on the National Register of outstanding landscape architecture in 1993.
There are two entrances to the park, and are guarded by two life-size statues of a bison and an elk. Another monument within the park’s premises is the “Smoke Signal”, a giant statue in the likeness of Chief Red Cloud that stands at 14 gfeet high. The statue was erected in 1935 and is a sight to behold.
Another one of Pioneers Park’s famous attractions is the “Columns,” which are remnants from the old Federal Treasury Building during its 1907 remodeling in Washington D.C.
The outdoor amphitheater in Pioneers Park has been the site of many summer musicals and community events. Called the Pinewood Bowl, it is a natural outdoor amplifier and is usually accessible to the public. Aside from your normal mode of transportation, you can visit this area of the park and the other areas as well by using the Bison Trail, which is part of a 99 mile city trail system for hikers and bikers.