We are staying just south of Springfield IL at Double J Campground
in Chatham. We took a narrated car tour of Lincoln’s Tomb and Oak Ridge
Cemetery.
The Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site is the final resting
place of Abraham Lincoln, his wife Mary, and three of their four sons: Edward,
William, and Thomas (known as "Tad"). Their eldest son, Robert
Lincoln, is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Also on the site is the
public receiving vault, where final funeral services were held for President Lincoln
on May 4, 1865. Constructed about 1860, the vault is at the base of a hill
north of the Tomb. The Lincoln Tomb was designated a National Historic Landmark
in 1960; it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. The
Tomb is operated by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. The Tomb,
designed by sculptor Larkin Mead, is constructed of brick sheathed with Quincy
granite.
In front of the Tomb is a bronze reproduction of Gutzon
Borglum’s marble head of Lincoln, which is displayed in the U.S. Capitol in
Washington, D.C. His nose is untarnished, because so many people touch or rub it for luck!
Interior rooms of the Tomb are finished in highly polished
marble trimmed with bronze. The south entrance opens into a rotunda, where
hallways lead to the burial chamber. The rotunda and corridors contain
reduced-scale versions of important Lincoln statues, as well as plaques with
excerpts from Lincoln’s farewell address to Springfield, the Gettysburg
Address, and his Second Inaugural Address.
President Lincoln’s remains rest in a concrete vault ten
feet below the marble floor of the burial chamber. A massive granite cenotaph
marking the gravesite is flanked by the presidential flag and the flags of
states in which Lincoln's ancestors and Abraham Lincoln himself resided. Crypts
in the chamber’s south wall hold the remains of Mary, Edward, Willie and Tad
Lincoln.
The remains of President Lincoln and his son Willie were
placed in the receiving vault from May 4 through December 21, 1865. From
December 21, 1865 through September 19, 1871, the remains of the President and
two of his sons, Eddie and Willie, were moved into a temporary above-ground
tomb constructed on the northeast side of the hill where the current tomb now
stands. Tad Lincoln, the President’s youngest son, died on July 15, 1871. His
remains were the first to be interred in today’s Tomb, followed by those of his
father and his two brothers on September 19, 1871.
Mary Lincoln died at her sister's home in Springfield on
July 16, 1882. She was laid to rest with her husband and dear sons a few days
later.
Construction of the Lincoln Monument began in 1868. It was
dedicated in 1874 in a ceremony attended by President U.S. Grant. Due to design
and construction faults, the Tomb was extensively rebuilt in 1900-01 and again
in 1930-31. Because of security concerns (thieves attempted to steal Lincoln’s
body in 1876), President Lincoln’s remains were moved to their final resting
place, below the floor of the burial chamber, after the first renovation.
The second reconstruction also involved a complete redesign
of the interior of the tomb, including creation of the inside corridors,
installation of the marble and bronze ornamentation, and addition of the small
statues. The Borglum bust outside the Tomb was installed at the same time.
Oak Ridge Cemetery is the second most visited cemetery in
the county, only after Washington, D.C.’s Arlington National Cemetery. Nearly
one million visitors come to the cemetery each year to pay their respects.
These high visitation number are largely due to Abraham Lincoln’s tomb.
We learned a great deal about the history of the Oak Ridge
Cemetery. It is distinctly different from the other cemeteries in the area,
state and country, mainly because of Lincoln’s Tomb. The grounds cover 365
acres of beautiful rolling land filled with over 10 variations of Oak trees.
Since 1865, the cemetery has grown to be the largest
Municipal cemetery in the state of Illinois, encompassing 365 acres of
beautiful rolling prairie land, thousands of hardwoods and conifers, and over
75,000 interments. Along with our beloved sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln,
there are over 70 other notable dignitaries interred at Oak Ridge.
Most of the stately gravestones are shaped into obelisks or
headless angels or urns draped with stone cloth. Among these classic markers of
memory, though, are surprises—grave markers that simulate the natural world
that surrounds them. They are shaped like tree stumps.
Some tree-stump markers take the shape of a cross. Others
are simpler, four or five feet tall, with their branch shorn off. One is a
short, cleanly cut stump, like one a hiker might rest on during a long walk
through the woods. They tend to surprise people who come across them, since
they’re not quite what we expect to see at the head of a grave. They date
mostly to 1880s to 1920s, when funerary art in the US was moving away from the
grand mausoleums and obelisks found elsewhere.
We also found some unique gravestones in the shape of
chairs. Some would call them Mourning Chairs, but the symbolism they have
adorned on them is amazing!
We drove to Lincoln’s home, which is part of the National
Historic Site. The Lincoln Home was the first and only home Abraham Lincoln
owned and still stands today, with much of the original structure, walls, and
foundations remaining. The Lincoln Home in itself in an artifact, as well as a
place of stories and memories that tell the stories of Abraham Lincoln and his
family. Its growth and expansion mirrors the growth of the Lincoln family from
a young couple with a baby to a presidential family bound for the White House,
as well as Lincoln's growth from a young lawyer of humble origin to the highest
position in the US.
Since we are in Springfield, we need to eat a famous place …
so, its dinner at Cozy Dog Drive-In! This deep fried golden weenie made its
first official appearance on a stick right here. Back in the early 1940s,
Waldmire Jr. visited Muskogee, Oklahoma, where he encountered an unusual
sandwich called the “corn-dog.” Unlike the fried corndogs which would rise to
prominence at the Cozy Dog Drive In, this sandwich featured a wiener baked into
a cornbread and lacked the modern-day corndog’s signature stick. Ed thought the
corn-dog was good, but took too long to prepare in a traditional baking oven.
The problem, he recognized, was being able to cover the hotdog in batter and
cook it in a short time.
In the fall of 1941, Ed shared his unusual sandwich anecdote
with fellow student Don Strand, whose father was in the bakery business, and
then thought little more of it. Five years later, while stationed at Amarillo
Airfield with the Air Force, Ed received a letter from Don following up on the
conversation: in the intervening time, Don had created something of a
Frankenstein’s monster. “To my surprise he had developed a mix that would stick
on a wiener while being french-fried,” Ed recalled. “He wondered if he could
send some down that I could try in Amarillo. Having plenty of spare time, I
said ‘yes.’”
After an arduous process, the duo landed on the name
“Cozy Dogs,” and on June 16, 1946, the Cozy Dog made its official debut at the
Lake Springfield Beach House. Later that year, the Cozy Dog made its first fair
appearance at the Illinois State Fair. Its residence then bounced around for a
few years, before finding its permanent home in 1949: the Cozy Dog Drive In on
Route 66.
Another great day of touring with Yankee RV Tours!
