Lincoln Museum in Lincoln, Illinois

[Tom Emery]

I wanted to let all of you know about a great article on a fine museum of Lincolnia in Lincoln, Illinois.

The museum is on the campus of Lincoln College, a private junior college in Lincoln, Illinois. The museum is a real "diamond in the rough," an extensive collection of high-quality historical artifacts on Lincoln.

The museum will be moving to a new building elsewhere on the campus, and will attempt to upgrade from a traditional museum setting to one with more interactive opportunity.

The article is in today's State Journal-Register of Springfield, Illinois. Go to http://www.sj-r.com, and you should be able to find it.

I actually live about 70 miles south of Lincoln, and the campus is a really nice place. It has a traditional, tree-lined entrance, some old-style academic buildings, and is particularly nice to visit in the spring, when the tulips are in bloom.

Lincoln College was established in 1865. It's not to be confused with Lincoln Christian College, a separate institution across town. It's also not to be confused with Lincoln Memorial University in Tennesee, or Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo., the latter of which was founded by black Civil War veterans a few years after the war.

I believe the town of Lincoln was the first city named for Lincoln, and one that he christened with watermelon juice.

The State Journal-Register is the current version of the Illinois State Journal and the Illinois State Register. The two merged sometime around 1974. (Remember Lincoln's phrase "The Journal was always my friend"?)