Looking for Lincoln

Today we drove through a thunderstorm to reach Decatur, Illinois, famed as the first Illinois home of President Lincoln. We visited the Macon County History Museum and Prairie Village which has a large collection of historical artifacts from Lincoln's time in Illinois, the Victorian era, and World War II. They even have one of a set of three chairs that used to belong to Lincoln. Apparently, Springfield also has a large Lincoln museum (along with Lincoln's tomb) and we detected a slight animosity, a hint of contention, festering between the two cities. Both claim to have a greater stake in the pursuit of Lincolnalia. 

Behind the Macon county facility, they had several small buildings from the territorial period, including the Lincoln Courthouse, an old log building that served as the county courthouse. Lincoln argued his first cases as a lawyer in this courthouse.

Another Decatur claim to fame: Decatur ranks third behind Washington D.C. and Springfield in the Most Lincoln Statues. There are five.

We found the most notable of these five, the statue in Lincoln Square, on the corner of Main Street and Main Street. I'm serious. Main Street and Main Street. We have photographic evidence of this anomaly.

This statue marks the site of Lincoln's first political speech. Story goes: Lincoln dropped his plow and walked to the edge of his field one day to extol to a randomly congregated group of Maconites the virtues of Whigdom.

We then spent some time wandering around downtown Decatur, or Soy City as several signs proclaim. We passed a large processing plant for, we assume, soy beans. A smell like green beans and frying oil hung over the town. Most of the town was equal parts wildly historic and depressingly squalid. Walking around downtown one was filled with two competing emotions: wonder at the old architecture and general ancientness of many of the buildings and fear of getting shanked at any moment.

We stopped into a local cafe for some coffee, then headed out to historic Greenwood Cemetery, a resting place for hundreds of Civil War soldiers.

Before leaving town, we stopped into Krekel's Kustard, an establishment dating back to 1949, for a world famous Krekel Burger. The place looked like a dive and a gang of fifteen year old boys with marine cuts manned the helm, but the burger was good.

Sated, we headed back to Champaign.