Looking for Lincoln the Lawyer

Last night we went to Carle Park, one of the closely guarded secrets of the Urbana Park District. Indeed, the directions to the park run thus:

"Across from Urbana High School mumble mumble mumble..."

To find the park, you have to leave a twenty dollar bill with your cell phone number on it under one of the trash cans on the first floor of the Champaign County Courthouse. Within twenty four hours, you receive a text from an unlisted number that gives you a time and a place to meet the park director. He arrives in a trench coat with a floppy hat and scarf across his face. This causes a bit of alarm, given the heat index.

Then he says:

"Across from Urbana High School mumble mumble mumble..."

Indeed.

Urbana High School, built in 1914, has had some notable alumni, including Roger Ebert and Ludacris. This 98 year old building exhibits Tudor style architecture.

Here's how you know:
1. Two large towers flank the main entrance.
2. Tall, narrow windows.
3. The Tudor Arch - pointed like the Gothic Arch, only wider and flattened as though under great weight. Remember how fat Henry VIII was? If you see a pointed arch and it looks like he sat on it, you probably have a Tudor.

Across from Urbana High School (mumble mumble mumble), there's a narrow lightly wooded corridor that runs between residential houses. In this corridor stands Lincoln the Lawyer (aka Young Circuit Lawyer, aka Young Lincoln).

Lorado Taft sculpted Lincoln the Lawyer in 1927. Taft went to University of Illinois for his bachelor's and master's and, during the period he created Lincoln the Lawyer, he was one of the most famous sculptors in the US. He's best known for his fountains, but he has statues in Chicago, Washington D.C. and at the Gettysburg Battlefield.

This statue commemorates Lincoln's time as a circuit lawyer in the 8th Judicial Circuit from 1837-1848. He argued a number of cases at whatever County Courthouse was standing at the time.

I was fortunate enough to get a quick picture with him.

This Lincoln numbers 5 on our list of Visited Lincolns:
1. The Lincoln Head in West Side Park, Champaign (The one with the lucky nose.)
2. Lincoln Reading Something, Decatur (I looked, the page was blank.)
3. Indoor Lincoln, Decatur (The curator discouraged us from taking a picture of this one, apparently digital photography has a deleterious effect on bronze.)
4. Lincoln's First Speech, Decatur (On the corner of Main and Main, this made three of the alleged Decatur Five, I have a feeling the other two were hocked to pay for meth.)
5. Lincoln the Lawyer (see above)

Word on the Lincolnvine is that an hour or so south of here in Ashmore stands the Largest Lincoln Statue of All Time. Unfortunately, the campgrounds on which it stands were sold (we had this recession a few years back) and the statue is currently inaccessible. This information pretty much broke my heart. Also in Ashmore: the haunted Ashmore Estates, featured in an episode of Ghost Adventures. In Haunting Illinois by Mr. Michael Kleen, however, the Ashmore Estates only rank two out of four little ghosts (by contrast, Greenwood Cemetery received four out of four little ghosts).

Back to Carle Park. After you pass Lincoln the Lawyer, the corridor funnels you through a Spanish Style Pavilion (specifically Spanish Colonial Revival... I think) in front of Miller Garden.

Then the park opens out into the rest of its eight acres. Carle Park has the little known Hickman Tree Walk. Fifty of its two hundred and fifty (large and terrifying) trees are marked with numbers and plaques. You can obtain a Hickman Tree Walk Brochure which identifies each tree and has pictures of leaves and a map. But obtaining said brochure proves almost as daunting as finding the park. They don't post a PDF online. No, you have to call a number and request a brochure. Then they give you directions to the Urbana Park District Administrative Building (which is actually an old house in one of the parks that you must enter and wind your way to the back to find a living, breathing person). I delegated this responsibility to Aine. She came back with two brochures.

We didn't have time for the Hickman Tree Walk this go round, but plan to give it the time and detail it deserves in the future. The fifty trees are all native Illinois trees. This is the mother lode.