Arbor Lodge State Historical Park

J. Sterling Morton came to Nebraska Territory in 1854, not long after it opened to settlement, and the next year he and his wife Caroline began the four-room frame house that, through several remodelings, grew into this 52-room mansion. Morton served as territorial secretary and for a time as acting governor, ran three times for governor without winning, and was secretary of agriculture under Grover Cleveland from 1893 to 1897.

Morton's cause was planting trees on the prairie. In 1872 he proposed to the State Board of Agriculture a day for planting them, and on the first Arbor Day, April 10, 1872, Nebraskans planted an estimated million trees. Caroline died in 1881 and Morton in 1902. Cleveland stayed a night at the lodge in 1905 when he came to dedicate a memorial, and in 1923 their son Joy Morton gave the estate to the state.

The grounds take in an arboretum, an Italian terraced garden, a log cabin and more than 200 varieties of lilac, best in spring. Since 2014 the Arbor Day Foundation has run the park for the state, and the mansion is open for tours most of the year on a seasonal schedule.