Springfield Is More Than Lincoln Land

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. —  Abraham Lincoln once heard that a pastor in town planned to preach a sermon on the second coming of the Lord, to which the president replied: If the Lord had been to Springfield once, he probably wouldn’t be back again.

But Lincoln loved the city, and with good reason. He arrived in town in 1837, unknown and penniless, and left as president-elect.

Before he departed Springfield for the last time in February 1861, he told the crowd of well-wishers at the train depot how much the city had meant in his life: “To this place and the kindness of these people I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man.”

Just as Springfield left its mark on Lincoln, he left an enduring impression on the city. And like Lincoln, Springfield prospered, growing from its unpromising founding in 1821 to the capital of Illinois.

Springfield has a special place in my life too. I spent several summers working here while I was in college, and after graduation it was the first place where I lived on my own. Living here off and on for three years, I count it as my second hometown. I love playing tour guide here and have returned more times than I can count since I moved to St. Louis in the early ‘80s.

Springfield is a government town, and the state capitol dominates it physically and psychologically. To people from rural areas it’s a large city with urban problems. Chicagoans mostly look down on it as a village. And in many ways it is a combination, a small city with problems but with a strong sense of culture and history.

There are a few high-rises, but it is a city of eclectic architecture: government buildings, ornate armories, stark office blocks, Roman columns on stone buildings, trendy glass atriums. It is also a city of single-family homes with well-kept yards.

More than a million visitors a year come to this city of 100,000, an easy 100-mile drive north on Interstate 55 from St. Louis and a half-day trip south from Chicago. For the most part they are attracted to the Lincoln sites. A mayor of Springfield once said that a tourist is worth more than a bushel of corn and is twice as easy to shuck.

But as much as the city reveres and profits from Lincoln, Springfield has an identity beyond Lincoln’s legacy. The old and the modern exist side by side here, if sometimes uneasily. So much of Lincoln’s Springfield has given way to updating that the fate of every pre-1865 building in town becomes a matter of national concern, and developers and preservationists are often at each other’s throats. But both the antique and newfangled sides of the city are worth a visit.

When I visit Springfield with my family or friends, I take them first to Lincoln’s home at 8th and Jackson streets, now, as then, a short walk from downtown. The home and a visitor center are part of the four-block Lincoln Home National Historic Site, which attempts to re-create the neighborhood as it was in Lincoln’s time, down to plank sidewalks and gas streetlights.

Maintained by the National Park Service, the two-story home is a faithful preservation of the solid but not showy house of a successful attorney and his family, and it looks as it would have around the presidential election of 1860, when Lincoln received the delegation that informed him of his nomination to the Republican ticket.

The demands of modern tourism have required concessions--the original frame of the house has been replaced by a hidden steel structure to bear the millions of visitors--but the sense that real people, not just the man of marble statues, once lived there is very strong.

About 65 pieces of furniture in the house were owned by the Lincolns, and the rooms have a lived-in look. The toys in the children’s rooms are left sitting out, as they might have been in the busy household. Lincoln’s hat hangs in the front hall, along with Victorian ornaments that belonged to his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. The Lincolns lived in the house from 1844 to 1861. It was the scene of great happiness for them but also of great sadness and turmoil, as one son, Edward, died at age 3, and the couple’s volatile marriage often boiled out into the street.

The first time I visited Lincoln’s house on a school field trip in the late ‘60s, there was a garish souvenir shop across the street with a sunken garden and tasteless knickknacks. To no one’s regret it was demolished, but with it went several residences and offices in what was once a thriving neighborhood. Now only a few period houses and Lincoln’s home remain, isolated from the rest of the city and rendering the area somewhat sterile.

A few blocks’ walk to the north leads to the Old State Capitol State Historic Site and, facing it across a red-brick pedestrian mall, the Lincoln Herndon Law Offices, where Lincoln practiced with his partner and biographer, William Herndon, from 1843 to 1853.

No one knows exactly what Lincoln’s one-room office looked like, but Herndon said Lincoln’s sons ran wild on visits, scattering papers and upsetting inkwells. The simple furnishings, a writing table covered with papers, filing boxes and shelves of law books are not much different from a modern law office, but Lincoln’s presence makes the office a shrine.

By 1858 Lincoln had served four terms as a state legislator and one term in Congress and had tried without success to secure a government appointment. He had retired from politics and despaired of ever leaving a mark. Following the Dred Scott decision of 1857, which opened the territories to slavery, Lincoln decided to enter the race for the U.S. Senate against Stephen Douglas.

It was in the Old State Capitol, across the street from his law offices, that he delivered his “house divided” speech. Lincoln’s words--that the country “cannot endure half slave and half free”--propelled him into national prominence, inflamed the South and, upon his election to the presidency two years later, sparked secession.

The Greek Revival, red-roofed Old Capitol was rebuilt during the mid-1960s to re-create Lincoln’s time. Knowledgeable guides in 19th century costumes conduct tours, occasionally by candlelight. The building displays one of the rails Lincoln allegedly split, an artifact displayed during the 1860 campaign--much to Lincoln’s embarrassment because he did not like to romanticize his hardscrabble past. Lincoln’s body lay in state here before his burial in 1865.

Across the street is the construction site of the $115-million, 100,000-square-foot Lincoln Presidential Library, which, when completed next year, will combine historical attractions with serious scholarship of Lincoln manuscripts and relics.

Lincoln sites in Springfield are well marked by road signs, making it easy to find the next stop on my tour: his tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery, a mile or so north of downtown. The ornate stone monument, completed in 1874, is a 19th century tribute to the legend as much as the man. His wife and three of their four children are also entombed there.

Before entering the somber chamber, most visitors touch the nose on a bust of Lincoln outside the entrance for good luck. If the look is familiar it is because it was made by Gutzon Borglum, the same sculptor who carved Lincoln’s face into Mt. Rushmore. Over the years thousands of hands have polished the bronze to a bright copper color.

Behind the tomb, at the base of the hill it crowns, is one of my favorite Lincoln sites: the little-visited original tomb, dug into the side of the hill, where the bodies of Lincoln and his son Willie, who died in the White House, were laid while the monument was built. The stark simplicity of the now-empty space seems closer to Lincoln’s character and more in keeping with his wishes for a simple burial than the towering tomb where he now rests. Civil War soldiers lie buried a few yards away, their cannon still ready to defend their leader.

No Lincoln pilgrimage to Springfield is complete without a visit to New Salem State Park, about 25 miles northwest. Most of the village of New Salem, where Lincoln spent six formative years before moving to Springfield, has been re-created down to the smallest detail. Curators went so far as to import sheep from Europe to reflect the breeds that existed in the village at the time.

In New Salem, Lincoln first studied law, first ran for the state legislature and, depending upon which historians you believe, either did or did not fall in love for the first time with a woman named Ann Rutledge. The log buildings of Lincoln’s two failed general stores, the Rutledge tavern, the home where he taught himself grammar and mathematics--there are 23 period structures in all--along with a museum, visitor center and outdoor theater make New Salem one of the best Lincoln sites to visit.

Leaving the 19th century and Lincoln behind, I head to one of my favorite spots in Springfield: In a residential neighborhood a fairly easy walk from downtown is the Dana-Thomas house, perhaps the best preserved of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie houses.

In 1902, socialite Susan Lawrence Dana had the money ($60,000) and the spirit to give the young architect free rein. In 1944 the house was bought by Thomas Publishing Co., which closed the doors on the architectural treasure for decades. In 1981 the publishers sold the house to the state for $1 million, turning down offers of a million for each of the four light fixtures in the dining room.

When I entered the sprawling house for the first time, I felt as if I were at the opening of King Tut’s tomb. All of the Wright-designed furniture and fixtures are still exactly as they were in Dana’s day. The ballroom floor was constructed on springs to cushion it from vibrations from trains running behind the house. A barrel with a spigot was built into the wall to dispense champagne during parties. But in one room, a Victorian fireplace contrasts conspicuously with the house’s clean lines. Because of a provision in her father’s will, Dana was not allowed to destroy the family house, and, to comply, Wright built the rest of the house around it.

Just as Springfield rediscovered the Dana-Thomas House, it also is finding its Route 66 heritage. The city was an important stop on America’s Main Street until the push for freeways routed traffic away from downtown. As happened in many other towns, the downtown center suffered. Now the city is making efforts to redirect traffic downtown along Historic 66, and in September it will celebrate its first Route 66 Festival.

Shea’s Gas Station on Peoria Road is the city’s unofficial museum of Route 66 memorabilia, gathered by 80-year-old Bill Shea. The former filling station is a privately funded labor of love, a frequent stop for Route 66 pilgrims from around the world.

One Route 66 site that has survived is the Cozy Dog Drive-In, reportedly the birthplace of the corndog. As every educated person knows, the corndog is the most perfect food: It provides protein from the hot dog, grain from the batter, vegetables from the corn and, if needed, fiber from the stick. The Cozy Dog is the Spago of corndog vendors.

Springfield’s other culinary contribution to the world is the horseshoe, an open-faced sandwich of hamburger, turkey or ham smothered in cheese sauce and topped with French fries. Invented in the Leland Hotel in 1928, horseshoes are served at several restaurants in town, but I think the best may be had at Norb Andy’s, a favorite hangout for politicians, a few blocks from the state capitol.

Like all cities, Springfield has many hidden gems. Across from the Old State Capitol is Prairie Archives, a bookstore and collectibles treasury and the source for T-shirts with a quote falsely attributed to Lincoln: “They’ll have to shoot me to get me back to Springfield.”

In fact, a common fantasy in Springfield has Lincoln returning to his hometown, walking the streets, looking up the old places and seeing if he likes what they did to his town. Lincoln would recognize only a few buildings, but if he looked hard enough he would see the same kind of town, where the elegant touches and the rough edges come together as they did in his day.

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Guidebook: Historic Springfield

Getting there: From LAX, United, American, American Trans Air and Northwest fly to Springfield with a change of planes. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $198.

Where to stay: The Hilton Springfield tower dominates downtown at 700 E. Adams St.; (217) 789-1530, fax (217) 789-0709, www.hilton.com. From $79 double.

Nearby is the new Carpenter Street Hotel, 525 N. 6th St.; (888) 779-9100 or (217) 789-9100, fax (217) 789-9387, www.carpenterstreethotel.com. From $68 double.

Smaller but equally nice is the Mansion View Inn & Suites, 529 S. 4th St.; (800) 252-1083, fax (217) 544-6211, www.mansionview.com. Doubles $60-$80. Across the street from the Lincoln Home National Historic Site is the Henry Mischler Bed and Breakfast Inn, one of four B&Bs; in the neighborhood, at 802 E. Edwards St.; (217) 525-2660, www.mischlerhouse.com. Its five rooms range from $75-$95 double.

What to see: Lincoln Home National Historic Site, 8th and Jackson streets; (217) 492-4241, Ext. 221, open 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. daily; extended hours in spring and summer. The visitors center distributes free tickets to enter the house on a first-come, first-served basis. Waits for tours (limited to 15 people) can be as long as two or three hours; visitors are urged to come early.

Lincoln Herndon Law Offices State Historic Site, 6th and Adams streets; (217) 785-7289; open 9 a.m.-4 p.m. daily; after March 1, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Old State Capitol State Historic Site, Downtown Mall, (217) 785- 7961; open 9 a.m.-4 p.m.; after March 1, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tours free, but $2 donation suggested.

Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site, 1500 Monument Ave., at Oak Ridge Cemetery; (217) 782-2717; open 9 a.m.-4 p.m.; after March 1, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Free tours.

Dana-Thomas House, 300 E. Lawrence Ave.; (217) 782-6776, www.dana-thomas.org; open

9 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesdays- Sundays. Suggested donation

$3 adults, $1 ages 3-17.

Where to eat: The Cozy Dog Drive-In, on old Route 66, 2935 S. 6th St.; (217) 525-1992.

A Cozy Dog costs $1.58.

Try the horseshoes at Norb Andy’s, 518 E. Capitol St.; (217) 523-7777. Open for lunch and dinner. Horseshoes $5.95, dinner entrees $9.95-$15.95.

For more information: Springfield, Illinois, Convention & Visitors Bureau, 109 N. 7th St., Springfield, IL 62701; (800) 545-7300, www.visit-springfieldillinois.com.

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Greg Bailey, an attorney, is a freelance writer in St. Louis.