Roger Lempke spoke to Lincoln East Rotary about how the Pershing Mural is ready to be placed at the Wyuka Cemetery Grounds.
Pershing Center was named for U.S. Army General John J. Pershing. In 1886 -Pershing’s parents, sisters, and brothers move to Lincoln. In 1891 General Pershing was assigned to the University of Nebraska. In 1905 John J. Pershing married Frances Warren. In 1915 Frances and three daughters were killed in a house fire in San Francisco, but their son, Warren Survived. Warren was sent to Lincoln to live with General Pershing’s sisters. In 1920 they purchased a home at 1748 B Street. His sisters, Anna May Pershing was born on June 1, 1867 and died on August 1, 1955 (88 years old) and is buried at Wyuka Cemetery. His other sister, Grace Pershing Paddock was born around 1869. She married Richard B. Paddock (a West Point friend of John J. in 1890. She died on April 25, 1903 and is buried in Princeton, IL.
Background information
Pershing's exterior was highlighted by a large ceramic tile mural, designed by artists Leonard Thiessen and Bill J. Hammon. The mural depicts 38 figures playing sports, dancing, and performing in theater and circus events. Measuring 38-by-140 foot (5320 sq. ft.; 494.2 m2) and consisting of 763,000 1-sq.-inch pieces, it was the largest ceramic tile mural in the United States at the time of its construction. The mural is a variety of abstract images telling a story about the spirit of Nebraskans. There are 37 characters with at least 14 minority; male and female, highways, rivers, lakes, and historic pioneer trails.
Pershing was used for sports, concerts, and many other events during it’s time. In 2014 the City of Lincoln was looking for reuse plans for Pershing Center, but none of the proposals were acceptable because of cost. Therefore, the future of the building was uncertain. The contents were auctioned off between January and February 2015.
By 2018, the auditorium's future was still unclear. It remained standing and was used only as a storage facility for Pinnacle Bank Arena. In June 2020, it was announced that the Pershing Center would be demolished, and would be replaced with an apartment complex and a new library. Demolition on the building finally began in August 2023.
Members of the community also voiced their desire to save the large, iconic mural on the auditorium's exterior. Estimates placed preservation and re-installation of the mural elsewhere at $1.2 million. The ultimate fate of the mural remains undetermined but it was taken down and preserved by the Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation in October 2022, with the intent to re-install it at an undetermined location. The mural is currently planned to be reinstalled at the Wyuka Cemetery grounds.
Jump ahead with friends and others the Pershing Mural has been restored in 3-D. It was a slow process in getting the mural down in sections, marked, labeled, etc., but it now ready to be placed at Wyuka Cemetery grounds.
Nebraska educators also are assembling a 17-lesson academic package to be available for free. They believed that students and the public would want to know more about what the mural represents, its background, history and how the rescue came together.
Each lesson aims to serve as a springboard of discussion and inspiration in areas such as historic preservation, architecture, language arts and public investment in art.
“I thought it had a life of its own in the beginning,” Liz Shea-McCoy said of the project. “Now it’s become even more important and enriching to our state, to kids, to teachers, to the people who now will be able to see it who are blind.”
They still need to raise $500K and hope to have the project completed by this fall.