Hastings Chautauqua Pavilion

The ground came first. Dewitt C. Palmer and Daniel C. Crane gave Hastings this park, Prospect Park, commonly called Chautauqua Park, as a Christmas gift, deeded on December 24, 1886: twenty-four acres, eighteen from Palmer and six from Crane. The terms, as Judge W. R. Burton's 1916 county history records them, required that it stay a park forever, that no liquor be sold there, and that it be fenced and planted with trees in 1887. The city met every condition but one, a lake. Palmer, back in New York, came to see the Chautauquas.

What the plaque says

Hastings Chautauqua Pavilion From the early 1900s through the mid-1920s, summer circuit Chautauquas brought culture and entertainment to communities across the U.S. The Hastings Chautauqua Association constructed this pavilion in 1907. Local architect C. W. Way designed it to resemble a large meeting tent. Seating 3,500, it was the largest pavilion in Nebraska. Notable speakers here included William Jennings Bryan and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The pavilion, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, was partially destroyed by arson in 1992, but was rebuilt in 1993. City of Hastings Adams County Historical Society Nebraska State Historical Society 2009

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer — 20 mi
  Edward Durell Stone's island pavilion in Grand Island and an 1890s railroad town of moved buildings, among them the cottage where Henry Fonda was born in 1905.

More markers nearby

• Hastings Brickyard Park — 0.7 mi
• Central Hastings Historic District — 1.1 mi
• Heartwell Park Historic District — 1.9 mi
• Hastings College Campus Historic District — 2.1 mi