Honest Abe

The presence of Abraham Lincoln is very strong in Illinois and he is memorialized everywhere, as you can see from the above USMC Illinois vanity license plate. Abe was The Great Emancipator, as he’s referred to by the people at his museum and library, which is a couple of hours away over in Springfield. The museum is quite a fantastic place with top-rate exhibits that condense giant complex movements in history like slavery and the Civil War into about 17 minutes of action-packed, state of the art audio-visual spectacle. It is a fabulous museum, only they do not allow photography, except in the rotunda.



Here’s the one picture I snapped, waxy Abe and his waxy wife and offspring and perhaps some very real-life descendants of those he freed, eying each other.


You can also go see his house in Springfield, a few blocks away in this historic district that is kept up in pristine Colonial Willamsburg style by the National Park Service.


The house has its own dedicated parking lot
since the park service forbids parking on the street in front of the Lincoln residence.

I guess they’re trying to maintain that Ye Olde Historical feel and that air of authenticity. Oh, but there’s more authenticity: here’s his actual real nameplate that actually bears his name:







Cool, huh? And here’s the whole house:


It’s like living history. I know that sounds dumb but really when I saw the mailbox of Abe Lincoln and looked at the fence that he painted with Tam Sawyer and saw the bus stop bench ad for the souvenir shop that bears his name...




it gave me chills.