The Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park

Posted on July 11, 2016 by admin

“Where are we going?”

“Lincoln’s birthplace,” I told Ann on the morning of June 24 as we left Elizabethtown, Ky. “It’s about 10 miles off the Interstate. Bet his parents were glad to have a place near the highway.”

Ha, ha, Dad, was the reaction.

The Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park is in fact about 10 miles east of I-65, a roadway built much later than the Lincolns’ cabin or even the monumental building erected on the site 100 years later, with its groundbreaking on February 12, 1909. TR was there that day to wield the ceremonial trowel, which is now on exhibit at the visitors center.

So is a statue of the Lincoln family. It includes the only depiction that I’ve seen of toddler Abraham Lincoln, with his parents and older sister Sarah. John Russell Pope, who also lived long enough to do the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC, and a good many other things, designed the birthplace memorial.
“Built on the knoll above the sinking spring where many believe the Lincoln cabin originally stood, the Memorial Building at Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park was constructed between 1909 and 1911 in an effort by the Lincoln Farm Association to commemorate the life and accomplishments of the sixteenth President of the United States and to protect his ‘birth cabin,’ ” notes the NPS.

“Pope’s design of the building included many symbolisms related to Abraham Lincoln, including fifty-six steps leading up to the building to represent the fifty-six years of Lincoln’s life. Sixteen windows in the building and sixteen rosettes on the interior ceiling are there to remind visitors that Lincoln was the sixteenth president.”

Inside is the fake Lincoln cabin.
Haven’t got an historic relic? Make one that looks right, especially during the late 19th century, when touring exhibits were a way to make money. (Read about promoter Alfred Dennett and the fake cabin here.) According to the NPS, the structure now characterized as a cabin that “honors” the original. Sure, why not – and besides, the faking of the cabin was so long ago (1890s) that it too is of historic interest.

Up the road (US 31E) from the monument a bit is Lincoln Boyhood Home, which is only a few structures, all re-creations, but none made of marble or granite. From there, of course, the Lincolns moved to Mississippi and Abraham grew up to be a leader of the Confederacy… no, that was Jefferson Davis, also a Kentucky boy born in the early 1800s. Geography is destiny? I’m not smart enough to know.

Hodgenville, Ky., which is between the birthplace and boyhood home, does what it can to make passersby stop for a little Lincoln at the local “museum,” which mostly seemed like a gift shop. Also, the town traffic circle has a statue of an adult Lincoln and a boy Lincoln.

One more thing I saw on US 31E, south of the birthplace: a ghost sign on the side of a barn that said SEE ROCK CITY. If I’d been able to pull off to the side of the road at that moment, I would have, to take a picture (and baffle Ann). It was not to be. But it was there.

GTT 2016

Posted on July 10, 2016 by admin

On June 23, Ann and I left the Chicago area and headed south, returning earlier today. I’m calling the trip GTT 2016, as in Gone to Texas, but also Gone to Tennessee, another destination. Our route took us south to through Indiana and Kentucky and then to Nasvhille; west through West Tennessee and Arkansas and on to Dallas; and south again to Austin and San Antonio. The return was via Dallas and through Oklahoma and Missouri. All together, from backing out of my driveway to coming back to it, I put exactly 3,005 miles on my car, mostly on Interstates and US routes, but also a fair amount on the streets of Nashville, Austin and San Antonio.

None of the routes or places were new to me, except maybe Texarkana, where I’d never stopped before, and it’s been a long time since I’d traveled US 281 north of Johnson City, Texas, or on US 67 on to Dallas. But no matter how familiar the place or the route, you can always find new things.

In central Kentucky, near Elizabethtown, we visited Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park, which features a granite and marble monumental building with a not-really-Lincoln’s log cabin inside. Near Mammoth Cave NP, we walked through Diamond Caverns, an unrelated show cave.

By the time we got to Nashville, the heat was on — in the 90s at least every day, which made stomping around outside less pleasant, especially for Ann, but I did manage to take her to the Nashville Parthenon, which she didn’t remember seeing in 2008. The more important thing we did in Nashville was spend time with old friends Stephanie and Wendall, and pay a visit to Mike Johnson’s widow, Betra.

In Memphis, we saw the Peabody Hotel ducks and the National Civil Rights Museum. In Texarkana, we drove down State Line Road and stopped at the only post office in the nation in two states. In Little Rock, I visited Mt. Holly Cemetery in the morning just before the heat of the day and then the Clinton Library (in full, the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park) and, just before we left town, the Arkansas State Capitol.

Dallas was mostly given over to visiting my brother Jay and working. Jay joined us for our few days in Austin, including the Fourth of July, and for a few more days in San Antonio. In Austin on July 2, Ann went to RTX 2016 at the Austin Convention Center, a sizable event held by the media company called Rooster Teeth; I was her chaperon. We visited my old friend Tom Jones the next day, and on Independence Day, saw both the Baylor Street Art Wall and municipal fireworks over Lady Bird Lake. San Antonio was mostly about visiting my mother and brother Jim, and (for me) holing up in a cool place with Wifi and doing more work.

Naturally, the trip involved long stretches of driving. I want to do that while I still want to do that. Because of my obstinance in not getting Sirius or the like, terrestrial radio helps fill the yawning spaces between destinations. The trip was bookended by two news events whose coverage was limitless, even when there was no new information beyond speculation: Brexit near the beginning, and the murder of Dallas policemen toward the end. I also listened to more religious radio more than usual, mostly only minutes at a time, except for the erudite Alistair Begg, whom I will listen to until his show’s over or the signal fades.

The selection of music was mostly what you’d expect, drawn from the rigid genres created by the radio business, though there were a few oddities, such as the Mesquite Independent School District radio station (KEOM) in metro Dallas that played teacher and student shows, besides a selection of completely conventional ’70s music. On I-40 between Nashville and Memphis — the Music Highway, according to official signs along the way — I picked up an oldies station whose playlist was a little older and odder than usual. I heard it play “Waterloo” (Stonewall Jackson), “Ahab the Arab,” “and “Running Bear and Little White Dove,” the last two I haven’t heard in years.

We stayed in a nondescript chain motel in Elizabethtown; in Stephanie and Wendall’s fine guest rooms in Nashville; in another, less nondescript motel in Little Rock; with Jay in Dallas; in the Austin Motel on South Congress in Austin, an updated version of a tourist court that’s been there since 1938; and in an updated former company hotel (vintage 1914) in San Antonio, the Havana Hotel, since there were too many of us to be comfortable at my mother’s house.

During the return home, we stayed at the Munger Moss Motel in Lebanon, Mo., last night, because of course we did.

It’s the same as it was in 2009 and two years ago. Except (maybe) a couple of signs like this were added to the grounds.

Motel co-owner Ramona Lehman was selling Gasconade River Bridge postcards, sales of which help support the restoration of the bridge, a structure about 15 miles east of Munger Moss on the former US 66. I bought one. I didn’t stop to look at the bridge — this time — but it’s visible from I-44 if you know when to look, and I did.

The Old Hickory Switcheroo

Posted on April 21, 2016 by admin

See? Jack Lew was playing a deep game. Float the idea that Alexander Hamilton gets dropped from the $10 bill, only to pave the way for Andrew Jackson to be demoted to the back of the $20 bill. But I have to agree: better Jackson than Hamilton. Not sure that President Jackson would have been so keen to be on paper money anyway.

Time to change the designs, I figure. The last time any portrait changes happened was in my grandparents’ time, not counting the fairly recent enlargement of the portraits (except for the $1 and $2 bills). Between 1914 and 1928, four portrait changes occurred: $10 — Andrew Jackson to Alexander Hamilton; $20 — Grover Cleveland to Andrew Jackson; $500 — John Marshall to William McKinley; and $1000 — Alexander Hamilton to Grover Cleveland. Practically musical chairs, those changes, and the last two are moot in any case.

Less attention has been paid to the upcoming changes in the $5 and $10 bill, probably because Hamilton and Lincoln are keeping their observe status. In fact, the buildings on the back are going to be the same as well: the Treasury Department on the $10 and the Lincoln Memorial on the $5.

The main difference is that people are being added with the buildings: Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul on the back of the $10, and Martin Luther King Jr., Marian Anderson, and Eleanor Roosevelt on the back of the $5.

Reasonable choices, I suppose, yet clearly the work of committees. I have to wonder when Teddy Roosevelt’s going to get his due on some bit of currency, besides his presidential dollar, which no one sees. The 100th anniversary of his death’s coming up, after all. Truman as well, for that matter. A Truman nickel and a TR quarter? Just a thought.

One more thing, not related to money: something to watch this San Jacinto Day. Actually, two more: something to watch on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth’s 90th birthday.

The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial Highway & Lundy Lundgren

Posted on April 20, 2016 by admin

If you have time, US 20 is the best way between metro Chicago and Rockford. I-90 is faster but not as interesting, and a toll road besides. We went to Rockford on the Interstate for speed, but returned at our leisure on the US highway, which is sometimes four lanes, sometimes two, along that stretch.

US 20 is also known as the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial Highway in Illinois, honoring Gen. Grant, who spent some time in western Illinois. In fact, the highway runs by his house in Galena. (US 20 itself runs cross-country, from Boston to Newport, Ore., or vice versa.)

The honorary designation has been in place since 1955, but most of the original signs were lost or fell apart. In 2007, the Illinois DOT started replacing them with brown-lettered signs that include a portrait of Grant. The route passes very close to where I live in the northwest suburbs, and I remember starting to see the signs appear nearly 10 years ago. I thought the designation was new as well, but now I know better.

One of the places on US 20 between Rockford and the northwestern suburbs is Marengo, a burg of about 7,500 in McHenry County. Oddly, it seems to be named after the battle of that name, which did so much to solidify Napoleon’s top-dog status, at least until Waterloo. Maybe some of the town founders included Bonapartist sympathizers, but well after the fact, since it was established in the 1840s.

For years, I’ve been driving by a sign that points to a historical marker just off US 20 in Marengo. High time I took a look, I thought this time. The marker is a few blocks north of US 20 on N. East St. This is what I saw.

Carl Leonard Lundgren (1880-1934) hailed from Marengo, and behind the sign is the very field where he perfected his pitching skills, at least according to the sign. As a young man, Lundy Lundgren pitched for the Cubs from 1902 to ’09, and in fact pitched for the team during its most recent appearances in the World Series — 1907 and ’08.

He’s buried in the Marengo City Cemetery across the street from the plaque.

I took a look at the place from the street, but didn’t venture in. Most of it’s modern-looking, or at least 20th century, but there’s a small section whose stones look very old, older even than Lundgren’s, wherever it is. That bears further investigation someday.

LBJ’s Boyhood Home

Posted on March 17, 2016 by admin

Some years ago, I visited the “Texas White House,” that part of the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park where President Johnson used to entertain politicos of various kinds, talk on the phone constantly, and perhaps watch all of the network news programs at the same time, though the picture I’ve seen of him doing that was at the regular White House. The Texas White House is on the LBJ Ranch near Stonewall, Texas, along with a number of other structures.

Not far away, in Johnson City, Texas, is another unit of the National Historic Park, which includes the Johnson’s boyhood home. En route from Austin to San Antonio on March 6 — I didn’t take the most direct way — I stopped at the boyhood home and caught the last tour of the day.
“Lyndon Johnson’s family moved from a farm near Stonewall, Texas, to Johnson City (a distance of about fourteen miles) two weeks after his fifth birthday, in September 1913,” the NPS says. “For most of the next twenty-four years, this was their home…

“In February 1937, Lyndon Johnson returned home from Austin to seek the advice of his father — should he run for Congress? It was the first week of March, 1937, when Lyndon Johnson stood on the porch of his boyhood home to announce his candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives for the Tenth District of the State of Texas.”

We too stood on the porch — me and the two other people on the tour. Our docent was knowledgeable, which is always good to find in out-of-the-way presidential sites. He was able to convey some sense of the Johnson family, and their Hill Country environs, during LBJ’s younger years.

Lyndon might have asked his father for advice, but Samuel Ealy Johnson Jr wasn’t entirely successful as a politician, or as a businessman. This might have been the source of some tension in the household, and perhaps spurred the younger Johnson to think bigger in terms of a political career, though plumbing the motives of historic figures involves speculation. In any case, it was probably important to the future cast of LBJ’s mind that his father entertained other local politicos on that same porch, within earshot of the boy.

The house itself is handsome and fairly spacious, which indicates that the elder Johnson had some financial success. A few of the items currently inside belonged to the Johnson family, but most of them are period pieces. During Johnson’s boyhood, none of the houses in Johnson City were electrified, including their house. That part of Texas was ultimately electrified through the efforts of Congressman Johnson via a Rural Electrification Administration loan.

According to the LBJ Library, he wrote in a 1959 letter, “I think of all the things I have ever done, nothing has ever given me as much satisfaction as bringing power to the Hill Country of Texas.”

Herbert Hoover, Lizard Overlord

Posted on March 1, 2016 by admin

Recently I realized I have a minor collection of presidential post cards. Some I’ve acquired myself, some my brother Jay has sent me. I didn’t plan on it.

That comes to mind because last week Jay sent me one depicting Herbert Hoover. Here it is.

Jay says it looks like the president is emerging from the Time Tunnel, a cultural reference for those of us of a certain age. Unless, he noted, Hoover’s an extraterrestrial impersonator in this image. I’ll go along with that one. He looks like one of our Lizard Overlords back in the early 20th century, before they perfected their rubber masks.

The card, incidentally, was produced by the Hall of Presidents Wax Museum, located once upon a time in Colorado Springs. It seems to have closed around 2000 or earlier (sources differ). Closed for lack of visitors, or because the aliens packed all the wax figures into their saucers and took them home.

I already had a Hoover card, one produced by the Hoover Museum in Iowa, with him looking grandfatherly sometime after he left office — not nearly as much fun as the wax-lizard Hoover.

I did a quick and not completely thorough count of my presidential card collection, including only those with faces of presidents on them. (I have others that depict their homes, and two vice presidents: George M. Dallas and Al Gore.) So far I have Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Lincoln, A. Johnson, Grant, Benjamin Harrison, TR, Hoover, Eisenhower, LBJ, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Clinton. Got a ways to go.

Greater Tuna at Ford’s Theatre

Posted on November 29, 2015 by admin

Will Reagan-era Washington DC ever evoke the kind of nostalgia New York of various decades does, or London of the ’60s, or the once-removed nostalgia for Paris or Berlin of the ’20s? The Americans doesn’t really trade on nostalgia for the time, even though it’s set then. Who knows?

All I know is that I visited DC a number of times during the mid-1980s. During a late ’86 visit, I went to Ford’s Theatre for a performance of Greater Tuna.

I don’t remember a lot about Greater Tuna, except that it was a somewhat dark, two-man farce about a fictional small town in Texas. According to Samuel French, which licenses the play, Greater Tuna was originally produced in 1981 in Austin by its authors, Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard. The play’s stars, Williams and Sears, played all 20 characters, and Howard directed.

Greater Tuna was first presented Off Broadway at Circle in the Square in New York City on October 21, 1982. It ran for over a year Off Broadway, and “went on to tour major theatres all over America and spots overseas for the next 30 some years, and became one of the most produced plays in American theatre history,” notes Samuel French.

I think Joe Sears and Jaston Williams were still the two men doing all the parts in 1986, but I wouldn’t swear to it. All I have left is a ticket stub and a recollection of it being entertaining.

Ford’s Theatre, of course, has a doleful history of its own. The president’s box is still draped with flags, though it’s actually a 1960s reconstruction of the original, as is the entire theater space, with more changes made in a 2008 renovation. During the most recent renovation, the Washington Post ran an article containing a brief history of the place:

“Ford’s Theatre was a Baptist church until it was taken over in 1861 by entrepreneur John T. Ford. The venue was destroyed by fire the night of Dec. 30, 1862, but was rebuilt and reopened in 1863.

“After the assassination… when Ford sought to reopen for business, there was a public outcry. The government bought the theater from Ford and used it over the years as a museum and as an office and storage building.

“On the morning of June 9, 1893, the building was packed with 500 government clerks, occupying several floors of jury-rigged office space, when the interior collapsed, according to a Washington Post account the next day. Scores were killed and injured, and the theater’s already altered interior was destroyed.

The government rebuilt it again — and again used the building for storage. In the 1950s, the government decided to restore the building as a historic site and theater venue, and Ford’s reopened in 1968.”

It just occurred to me that I’ve visited three of the four sites of presidential assassinations: Ford’s Theatre, the National Gallery of Art’s West Building (built on the site of Baltimore & Potomac Railroad station where President Garfield was shot, though unmarked), and the Texas School Book Depository building. Guess that means I need to visit Buffalo.

Opening Notes of Spring

Posted on April 13, 2015 by admin

The opening strains of the northern Illinois spring symphony have begun. The grass greened up almost overnight last Thursday after a sizable amount of rain. Large puddles were left over, too, though that’s not necessarily a harbinger of spring.

After a few days, it was merely a soggy, muddy patch. The dog enjoys the mud. She’s been with us two years now.

We took a walk with the dog at the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve on Saturday, and I heard throaty frogs awake and (presumably) singing for a mate. On Sunday, I heard the faint strains of “Turkey in the Straw” from my office, and went to the front door to take a look. Sure enough, it was an ice cream truck.

Speaking of spring: A note to Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Hillary Clinton, and Marco Rubio (so far): I don’t want to hear about your efforts to become president. It’s the spring of 2015. I don’t even want to hear about it in the spring of 2016. It can wait till the fall of that year. Except maybe the candidacy of Vermin Supreme.

Don’t Call It a Hooverville

Posted on April 6, 2015 by admin

Just off of I-80 in east-central Iowa is the town of West Branch, hometown of Herbert Clark Hoover. These days, you can visit the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site there, as we did on March 27.

Besides the museum and library, and the graves of President and Mrs. Hoover, the site includes a collection of 19th-century buildings moved from other parts of town to form a sort of young Hoover-era village: a half-dozen houses, a schoolhouse, Jesse Hoover’s smithy, a Friends Meeting House, and a barn. All of these were put in the vicinity of Hoover’s birthplace cottage, a two-room structure in which HH came into the world on August 10, 1874. It’s the only thing in the area that hadn’t been moved.

It’s a small place. Really small: 280 square feet.

“Like any couple just starting out, 21-year old Hulda Minthorn and 23-year old Jesse Hoover were eager to have a place to call their own,” the NPS says about the cottage. “Shortly after their first wedding anniversary, and with the help of his father Eli, Jesse built this simple, but sturdy two-room cottage in the spring of 1871 on the corner of Downey and Penn streets.

“Looking around this house, you may think the Hoover family was poor. But their prudent spending, strong work ethic, and resourceful ways were actually a reflection of their Quaker beliefs.” More about the cottage is here.

Across Hoover Creek from the cottage is a curious thing. A statue of Isis — the ancient Egyptian deity, that is. How many monumental statues of Isis are there in Iowa? Maybe just this one. How many anywhere? I couldn’t say, but I do know there’s one at the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site.
“Considering Herbert Hoover’s Quaker upbringing, you might be wondering why there is a statue of Isis, ‘the Egyptian goddess of Life,’ sitting on the grounds of his birthplace,” says the NPS. “This bronze, seven-and-a-half-foot tall statue is the work of Belgian sculptor Auguste Puttemans [apparently his last work] and was a gift from the children, refugees, and soldiers of Belgium in gratitude for Hoover’s famine relief efforts on their behalf during the First World War.”

Quad Cities-Iowa City ’15

Posted on March 29, 2015 by admin

Or, back to visit Herbert Hoover. Not that President Hoover’s a particular favorite, but we were out that way. It started late Thursday afternoon, when all of us got in the car and headed westward, eventually putting up for the night in Moline, Illinois, one of the Quad Cities, our first of two nights there.

On Friday morning, we made our way to Iowa City — not following the most direct route, exactly, but getting there in the early afternoon for a look-see around the University of Iowa. It’s among the places Lilly is considering for her continued education. Late March being unpredictable, the air wasn’t very warm, but the sun was out and it wasn’t cold enough to discourage a walkabout on campus, or the nearby college-town business district, or a visit to the former state capitol. A re-visit for most of us, though it’s been quite a few years.

On our way back to Moline that afternoon, we stopped in West Branch, Iowa, birthplace and burial site of the 31st President of the United States. This time I insisted that everyone get out of the car and take a look. Lilly took my picture, so now I have a Manus Hand-style photo with a dead president. It’s the only one of that kind that I have.

On Saturday morning, I was up earlier than the rest of my family, taking the opportunity to visit the Rock Island National Cemetery, along with the nearby Confederate Cemetery, burial ground for CSA POWs on Rock Island. On the way back, I toyed with the idea of wandering through the John Deere Pavilion, but left it for another time.

In the late morning, we visited the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa, the successor entity to the Davenport Museum of Art that’s been open about 10 years. Interesting collection, not overwhelmingly large, and including something I’d never seen before: a section devoted to Haitian art.

That was it for this 48-hour quickie. Except for a few minutes’ drive through Le Claire, Iowa, where we stopped for gas. Notable as the birthplace of Buffalo Bill Cody, and home to a museum devoted to the showman. We left that for another time as well.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Presidents