2014-10-18 Lincoln Presidential Museum

Does anyone remember when Disney Imagineers tried to make history more interesting to a wider variety of Americans in Virginia by building a theme park? It was called Disney's America.
Disney's_America

Because of the backlash with Disneyfying history, when Illinois granted an ex-Imagineer with the contract to create the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Bob Rogers' previous employment with Disney was kept on the down low.

His company's result is one of the most visited Pres museums in the country and a Themed Entertainment Association award for Outstanding Achievement in a museum . 'Nuff said. Let's go in.

You enter into a large rotunda that is similar to the Springfield capitol building that Lincoln entered so many times as a lawyer and Legislator.

Walk down the hallway and it opens up to a very large room with a life-size replica of Lincoln's boyhood home on your left and the White House Portico on your right.

We get the required photo op with the family and move on.

We opt for the Holavision Theatre performance called "Ghosts of the Library". It is similar to Expo 86 and Knott's Berry Farms' Spirit Lodge attraction.

A single performer is in a library behind an angled piece of glass. In his 8 minute performance he interacts with holograms that the audience can see but he cannot. He lip syncs the words we are hearing and it appears that he IS saying them. It's a great show.

Most of the audience were art students and the actor came out after the show and answered as many questions as he was allowed about the show. We stayed and listened. It was like listening to a Disney Imagineer describe how a show works.

We wandered through the Lincoln home, seeing how small it was for entire family to be in there.

Further on there were scenes of slaves being sold, Abe working in a store, him courting Mary Todd, and his debates with Stephen Douglas.

His was lenient with his children and did allow them to play in his law office.

An interesting display was a bank of TV screens with mock reports on the progress of the Presidential election.

They had a really cute area for children to play in.

The White House years were depicted in the Portico building. Mary and a few of the dresses she had were shown.

Way too much attention was paid to the political cartoons of the time. There must have been 3 small rooms of them.

Their son died while they were in the White House.

In the 2012 movie, Lincoln, there is a lengthy scene of the President and his cabinet discussing the timing of the release of the Emancipation Proclamation.

These are Union uniforms but what was more interesting that we didn't get a picture of was the map. In 4 minutes it showed the land owned by the North and the South during the duration of the war as well as the number of casualties on each side. It was an animated map with territory shrinking and growing as battles were won/lost.

Finally the war ended, Lincoln was re-elected, and then he was assassinated.
Nov       1864 Re-elected by a landslide vote
Mar       1865 Second Inaugural Address
Apr 9,   1865 Lee surrenders at Appomattox
Apr 14, 1865 Lincoln is assassinated

2014-10-17 Lincoln Lived Here

Everyone's gotta live somewhere. After growing up in his log cabin, Abraham Lincoln and his family lived in Springfield from 1837 until 1861, when he went to live in Washington DC as the President.

After getting married to Mary Todd and having a son, Robert, they purchased this home in 1844 from the preacher who married them. This is a model of what it looked liked.

At the time it was only a 6 room house. 11 years would pass before they enlarged it to the current 12 room, 2-story structure.

This historic area has been restored and is now 2 blocks square with beautifully restored homes on most of the lots.

This is model of the park property. The Lincoln Home is the bottom right corner of the upper left quadrant. Houses with windows have been restored on the property. The Visitor's Center is in the bottom right corner of the lower left quadrant.

This is the parlor where Lincoln received the news that he had won the Republican presidential nomination in 1860.

The living room where Abe was allowed to horse around with the kids.

Lincoln's bed WAS big enough for his 6'4" body.

The back side of the house. Behind us is a 3-hole privy.

The streets are for pedestrians only. The Lincoln Home is down by where all the people are standing.

There was this interesting item on the wall in the Visitor's Center. It listed all the servicemen in Lincoln's 4 block area. There were 20 of them!

There are a gazillion books on Lincoln (And I don't use gazillion lightly).

Later in the day we saw this lanky guy who is standing tall just a 1/4 mile from our campsite. He is called the "Rail Splitter".

...and we had tacos this evening.

2014-10-16 Lots to Do in Springfield

We've stayed our 3 days in Lincoln, IL and it is time to be moving on down Route 66 to Springfield, IL. It's only 30 miles and we're ready to go.

We're here! See, it wasn't that far.

Not exactly an idyllic setting, but we're not ones to sit outside in our lawn chairs anyway.

Williamsville has this eclectic building called The Old Station

 
On the north side of Springfield was a half mile section of old Route 66 that ended at the Sangamon River.

In downtown we visited their wonderfully restored Old State Capitol.

Lincoln practiced law here. He was a legislator here as well.  It was here also that they brought his casket for the final viewing location after his assassination.

It was in this building that he gave his "house divided" speech.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

This city has quite a few statues of Lincoln

Corn dogs originated right here in Springfield. Cozy Drive In was owned by Ed Waldmire. They call them Cozy Dogs.

We are always on the lookout for these GIANT men.

An actual DRIVE IN. And it shows double features. $7 per person.

There's more Lincoln here. We'll be back tomorrow to explore him some more.