The Golden Sower on the Nebraska State Capitol

Look up on a clear Lincoln day and you will meet The Sower — the bronze figure casting seed from the tip of the Nebraska State Capitol tower. Locals call him golden when the sun hits right. Officially he is agriculture in metal: barefoot, sleeves rolled, sun hood on, sowing the old way by hand.

This is the fun version of the story. Every measurement below comes from the Capitol Commission’s own fact sheets or the Smithsonian sculpture record — not from vibes.

How big is he, really?

According to the Nebraska Capitol Commission:

• The figure alone is 19½ feet tall.
• He stands on a 12½-foot pedestal shaped like shocks of wheat and corn.
• The bronze shell is about ⅜ inch thick, braced by an interior steel frame.
• All in, he weighs nearly 9½ tons.
• The tower he crowns rises about 400 feet.

He is also the Capitol’s lightning rod — which is either poetic or terrifying, depending on the storm.

Who made him?

Lee Lawrie (often catalogued as Lee Oskar Lawrie), the New York architectural sculptor who worked with Capitol architect Bertram Goodhue. The Smithsonian SIRIS record dates the sculpture 1928–1929 and lists the installation as April 24, 1930.

Lawrie did not drop a mascot on a roof. He built a working farmhand at civic scale — the same collaboration energy that shows up across the Capitol’s engaged reliefs, doors, and panels.

How did they get that up there?

Honest answer from the record: on April 24, 1930, the finished bronze was raised to the top of the tower while thousands of Nebraskans watched.

The Capitol Commission PDFs and the Smithsonian sculpture record say he was raised — they do not say whether that meant a crane, a derrick, a block-and-tackle, or some other construction-site lift. Period practice for monumental bronzes often used heavy construction equipment, but that is an educated guess, not a cited fact here.

What we can say, from those sources:

1. He was already cast and assembled as a reinforced bronze shell.
2. He was lifted as a finished piece onto the 400-foot tower.
3. A crowd showed up for the show — Lincoln does love a skyline plot twist.

If you want the open question in one sentence: they built a giant hollow bronze farmhand, put steel in his bones, and somehow got nearly 9½ tons of sculpture onto a skyscraper of a statehouse while the city watched — and the public fact sheets leave the exact “how” as a Lincoln mystery.

Which way does he face?

The Omaha World-Herald notes that The Sower points northwesterly — toward most of Nebraska’s land. Seeds first; politics later.

Why he belongs in Myths and Legends

Because every Lincoln kid invents a version: he spins at midnight, he is solid gold, he is hollow and filled with prairie dust. The true story is stranger in a quieter way — a nearly 9½-ton bronze seed-caster bolted to the tallest civic spike in the state, catching lightning for a living.

Stand at 14th and K. Binoculars help. The toes are real. The wind does the rest.

Read next

• Capitol deep dive: Lee Lawrie: Sculptor of the Sower
• More Capitol lore: Capitol hub