"Preserving the Past for the Future"
For Charles Pallesen, preserving WYUKA’s rich history and horticulture is the very key to its future. “The cemetery has been a vital part of this community for more than 100 years. Through the active preservation of this unique treasure, we ensure that it continues as an important resource for future generations.”

-Charles Pallesen, President, WYUKA Historical Foundation

The WYUKA Historical Foundation was created to maintain WYUKA Cemetery as an important community asset for future generations. Whether it be future fourth grade scholars studying Nebraska history, eighth graders profiling the over 900 civil war soldiers who are buried here, or graduate architectural students cataloguing the unique architecture found in the 22,000 monuments in our historic section; developing educational programs for “students of all ages” is, and will continue to be an important focus of the foundation.

The WYUKA Historical Foundation is a not-for-profit organization. Established in 1998, exclusively for charitable and education purposes.

The preservation and restoration efforts for monuments and buildings here at WYUKA is a principle focus of the Foundation. Time and the elements are working against many of the fine tombstones and funerary statues that grace the historic sections of the cemetery. For these gravestones to be available for the viewing of future generations we must take aggressive action now to restore and maintain them now.

Being a genealogical resource, the WYUKA Historical Foundation responds to the information of literally thousands of people from around the world on an annual basis. It is our hope with all of the burial and map information now in an electronic format, that we soon will have the data available for those doing family history in a convenient kiosk location.

Promoting culturally, WYUKA has now become a unique venue for the dramatic arts here in Lincoln, providing open air experience in the late spring and early fall with such diverse productions as Shakespeare, to Peter Pan. For the WYUKA Historical Foundation to continue such productions in the future in this wonderful location will also require some degree of community support beyond performance revenue.

Enhancing the beautiful landscape, the streets, and the other “historic” elements of WYUKA Cemetery and Park will assure a welcoming environ for future generations of Nebraskans and visitors from throughout the world is also a charge of the Foundation. WYUKA Cemetery through its noted recognitions on the National Registrar of Historic Places, and as a Nebraska State Arboretum Historic Landscape showcases on its grounds historic funerary sculptures and monuments, which are irreplaceable. The “replacement” cost of these monuments over restoration and preservation would amount to tens of millions of dollars.

Preserving our past, while we experience the present and build for WYUKA’s and our community’s future is the ultimate goal of the WYUKA Historical Foundation. The WYUKA Historical Foundation takes pride in our past and understands how it can positively shape Lincoln and Nebraska’s future.