Visiting Lincoln’s Tomb and Museum

Clockwise from upper left:  Lincoln Tomb, Lincoln burial room, Lincoln cartoon collection, inside Lincoln Museum (Photos by Don Knebel)

Today, we visit the Lincoln Tomb and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois.

            After President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, his body was carried to Springfield on a train that stopped in Indianapolis and passed through Zionsville, Whitestown and Lebanon.  Once in Springfield, the body was held in a vault in the city’s Oak Ridge Cemetery while workers built a tomb for Lincoln and his family nearby.  The tomb, completed in 1874, lies on a 12.5-acre plot and features a trapezoidal granite base and a 117-foot-high obelisk.  A rotunda inside connects to the burial room, which contains the body of Lincoln, his wife Mary Todd and their three youngest sons.  Originally placed in a marble sarcophagus, Lincoln’s body and that of his wife are now buried under the floor of the burial chamber.  Especially cast bronze statues of Lincoln at various periods in his life are in the marble halls leading to the burial room.  The tomb, one of the first sites designated a National Historic Landmark, is operated by the State of Illinois.

            The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is contained in two buildings, connected by an overhead walkway, near where Lincoln lived and worked.  The library contains the world’s largest collection of documents and the like related to Lincoln and his times and millions of items related to the history of Illinois.  The museum is divided into two sections, one from Lincoln’s birth to his election as president, which includes a slightly larger than life representation of Lincoln’s boyhood Indiana log cabin, and the other from his time in office, which includes a replica of the 1861 White House.  The museum, among the most popular of its kind, features a number of state-of-the-art exhibits, including a map showing the battles of the Civil War in four minutes and theatres with holographic narrators.  One popular exhibit displays cartoons lambasting Lincoln during his time in office.