Original Lincoln Home Cottage to be Reconstructed

[Norm Hellmers]

Eva, Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Rather than repeat everything that I have already submitted to the Symposium, I will just list a few highlights in opposition.
-- Any attempt at furnishing the 1844 cottage as it was at the “start,” would totally be a matter of conjecture. The National Park Service (NPS) preserves truth, not guesses.
-- The $400,000 to construct such a structure would be much better spent on higher priority needs at Lincoln Home National Historic Site, such as helping to restore another historic house to its Lincoln-era appearance.
-- The NPS is always underfunded and has a large backlog of operational and maintenance needs. Adding two more houses to maintain is not a priority. (One would be a replica and the other having only limited associations with the Lincolns.)

I agree with you about the importance of a “visual” experience. That is why the NPS preserves real places that have important ideals and truths that should be communicated to the American people and the world. We preserve a place like the battlefield at Gettysburg (where I first worked for the National Park Service) because it is the best place to tell what happened on July 1-3. 1863, as opposed to a book or a movie or a theme park that would try to recreate the battlefield. The NPS is not in the business of constructing replicas.

In addition to the philosophical problems of the proposal, there are issues that should have been addressed before the idea was presented.
-- The Abraham Lincoln Association did not contact the leadership of the NPS to see if they even wanted such a structure as the cottage or the addition of the Iles House.
-- Constructing a replica of an earlier form of a historic structure does not conform to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties and NPS Management Policies.
-- The proposed boundary expansion is not identified as a future need in the Lincoln Home NHS approved General Management Plan.

Your thoughts have merit, but I believe there are more compelling reasons that mitigate against adding such a replica to the Lincoln Home NHS.

I wish you every success with what sounds like an ambitious academic schedule.