If you ever stopped at the Platte River rest stop near Ashland, you may or may not have noticed the sculpture behind the building.
It’s one of several located along rest stops on I-80. The history behind them, and their legacy, is the topic of this installment of America 250: Community Connection.
The story starts with a creative idea by two people. Thomas Yates, a Lincoln businessman, and Norman Geske, the director of the Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln. Their goal: get people off the interstate, experience Nebraska, and celebrate the bicentennial.
“That [idea] was to create large-scale, abstract sculptures that would go at the rest areas along I-80…that developed into a multi-part selection process for the artwork, and now we have seven sculptures along the interstate,” Meagan Dion, Director of Public Art at the Nebraska Arts Council, told KMTV…