George Wolf and Paul Olson.
It all started in Paul Olson’s kitchen. In the mid-1970s, several UNL faculty members met in the UNL English professor’s home to discuss creating a regional center dedicated to the study of the Great Plains. The talks bore fruit in 1976 when the University Board of Regents chartered the Center for Great Plains Studies. The Center had a humble beginning in offices housed in Oldfather Hall at the center of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s City Campus. Despite this location, the Center was founded as a four-campus entity, serving UNL, UNO, UNK, and UNMC, and Paul Olson became its first director.
Over the past 50 years, the Center has developed its Fellows program, annual conference, two scholarly journals, book projects, Olson lecture series, and countless projects. Its Great Plains Art Museum connects the community with the art of the region and serves as a gathering place for education and artistic expression.
Explore below to see what we're doing to celebrate.
Support the next 50 years
If you value regional study and strengthening our collective connection to this place, consider supporting us this year. In celebration of our 50th anniversary, we've set a goal to raise $50,000 to help us continue our work.
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1976:
Center is chartered by the NU Board of Regents.
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1977:
First annual Great Plains conference, "Cultural Heritage of the Plains."
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1979:
The new Fellows program lists 39 members.
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1980:
John and Elizabeth Christlieb donate their collection of western art and literature, forming the basis for the Great Plains Art Collection.
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1981:
In September, the Great Plains Art Collection opens to the public on the second floor of the east wing of UNL's Love Library.
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1981:
Great Plains Quarterly, the Center's humanities-based academic journal, is launched.
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1991:
Center launches Great Plains Research to cover the sciences.
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1999:
Paul A. Olson seminar series starts, featuring a range of Fellows.
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2000:
The Center moves into its current building at 12th and Q streets and the art collection is renamed as the Great Plains Art Museum.
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2003:
The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition are published (edited by Gary Moulton).
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2004:
The Encyclopedia of the Great Plains is published featuring 1,316 entries by almost 1,000 scholars and edited by David Wishart.
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2005:
The Center awards its first Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize, later renamed after former Center Director Jim Stubbendieck.
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2006:
The Great Plains Art Museum launches the Elizabeth Rubendall Artist in Residence program to bring artists into the museum to create a piece for the collection.
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2012:
The Center launches the grant-funded Great Plains ecotourism project, publishing a map of the top 50 ecotourism spots in the region.
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2014:
The Great Plains Ecotourism Coalition is launched with a set of travel posters that are exhibited across Nebraska.
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2016:
The Center publishes the first of its Discover the Great Plains series, which delivers quick, but substantive primers on Great Plains topics.
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2017:
With the support of the National Park Service, the Center launches a project to document black homesteaders on the Plains.
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2018:
The Center's ecotourism work culminates in the largest conference to date in Kearney, Neb.
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2019:
The Great Plains Art Museum opens the Elizabeth Rubendall Artist-in-Residence Studio & Education Lab in the lower-level gallery that allows for a year-round, hands-on education space.
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2020:
The Center launches an online version of the Paul A. Olson lecture series called Great Plains Anywhere.
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2021:
The Great Plains Art Museum is awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant allowing staff to start digitizing the collection.
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2022:
First Otoe-Missouria Day
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2023:
The Mellon Foundation awards $1.58 million to the Center and the Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Oklahoma for the Walking in the Footsteps of our Ancestors Project.
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2024:
Lincoln City Council makes Otoe-Missouria Day permanent.
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2025:
The Great Plains Art Museum opens Reflections of Our People, Our Ways, Our Land, the first exhibition of all Otoe-Missouria artists anywhere.
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2026:
Our 50th anniversary!
Hear from our friends
Share your Center memories with us
Use the form to share your favorite Center memories and photos with us. We may use them for this webpage, a slideshow during events, or on our social media pages.
50th anniversary slideshow:
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Fran Kaye -
John Wunder and Gary Moulton -
Center for Great Plains Studies event -
Return of the Sacred Pole to the Omaha -
Former GPAM curator Jon Nelson -
John Wunder -
Center gathering -
Fran Kaye (left) on a prairie -
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Construction of the Center for Great Plains Studies at the corner of 12th and Q streets. -
Roger Welsch -
Cliff Hollestelle watches his sculpture be unveiled -
Paul Olson holds a framed print of Keith Jacobshagen's "Havelock Elevator, Evening of Ash Wednesday."
Events and Activities
- Spring 2026 SNR Departmental Journal Club
- Paul A. Olson lectures at UNK and UNO
- Fellows meet ups (details coming soon)
- Fellows trips: Kayaking and Sandhill crane trip (details coming soon)
- Special issues of Great Plains Research and Great Plains Quarterly
- Anniversary celebration (fall)
- Collection Connections: Art in Conversation at the Great Plains Art Museum celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Center and the 45th anniversary of the museum’s opening with artworks from the collection that span the museum’s history, from the founding donation to recent acquisitions.
- March First Friday opening reception for With a Little Help from Our Friends: New Perspectives on the Collection, an exhibition highlighting the important interdisciplinary focus of the Center and its core intellectual community, the Great Plains Fellows.
