As America celebrates her 250th birthday this week, another unique milestone is being remembered, this one in Nebraska alone. Fifty years ago, an intrepid pair of art connoisseurs brought to life a 500-mile sculpture garden that both delighted and irritated the Cornhusker public in nearly equal measures. Thomas Yates, previously of Bankers Life Nebraska and Norman Geske, then Director of Sheldon Museum of Art, presented the idea in 1973 in preparation for America’s 200th anniversary. The purpose of the project was “to celebrate the Nation’s bicentennial by providing access to examples of the best contemporary sculpture of the time outside museum walls and contribute to Nebraska’s cultural heritage,” according to the Nebraska Arts Council.
Quite accidentally, the innovative idea (for the tim…