C-Hill gets facelift

The huge concrete letter was the brainchild of T.A.F. Williams, a college mathematics professor at the time and later the registrar. His math students apparently helped with the project.

The story is also told that to make sure the letter would be attractive and properly proportioned, Williams and his wife strung muslin along their proposed outlines of the C and walked about a mile downtown to take a look before the concrete was poured.

It became a reality in 1924.

The C is big. It is approximately 80 feet long and four feet wide. The top and bottom of the C extend more than 20 feet to the west. Altogether, the C has 334 linear feet of concrete. 

For many years, it was a tradition that the college freshmen would repaint the C shortly after they arrived on campus. Observers noted that often more paint was on the students than was applied to the concrete.

This year college maintenance workers scrapped off most of the old paint before they applied the new coat. It took 60 gallons to make the C glisten again.

C-Hill is featured in a book, “Hillside Letters, A to Z – A Guide to Hometown Landmarks,” written by Evelyn Corning and published by Mountain Press Publishing of Missoula, Montana, in early 2007.

While Corning found that about 400 similar letters are placed to overlook schools and towns in the United States, she wrote that the C is the only one of its kind in Nebraska.