Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site, part of the Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area, preserves the 19th-century home of Thomas Lincoln and Sarah Bush Lincoln, father and step-mother of our 16th president. Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer living in Springfield by the time his parents moved here, but his burgeoning law practice often brought him to Charleston and the farm, especially during the 1840s. Abraham Lincoln also owned a portion of the farm which he deeded back to his father and step-mother for their use during their lifetime.

Today Lincoln Log Cabin is an 86-acre historic site that is owned and operated by the State of Illinois, managed by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Sites. The site includes an accurate reproduction of the Lincolns’ two-room cabin that was reconstructed on the original cabin site in 1935-1936 as a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) project. The National Park Service oversaw the creation of Lincoln Log Cabin State Park with CCC labor. The CCC camp, Camp Shiloh, was located within the park’s boundaries and its enrollees were WWI veterans. Today the ten acres in the northwest corner of the park where Camp Shiloh was located is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

A working, living history farm has been developed around the cabin, and a second historic farmstead, that of Stephen and Nancy Sargent, has been moved to the site to help broaden visitors’ understanding both of life in the 19th century and Lincoln’s legal practice in the community. The site also includes the Moore Home, where Lincoln bid farewell to his family in 1861 before leaving to assume the Presidency, and the gravesites of Thomas and Sarah Lincoln at the Thomas Lincoln Cemetery.

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Saturday, July 24, 2:00 pm: Visitor Center
"How Corn Changed Itself and Then Changed Everything Else"
Illinois Humanities Council Roads Scholar Presentation by
Cynthia Clampitt

About 10,000 years ago, a weedy grass growing in Mexico possessed of a strange trait known as a “jumping gene” transformed itself into a larger and more useful grass—the cereal grass that we would come to know as maize and then corn. Most textbooks only mention corn in the context of rescuing a few early settlers, but it in fact sustained the colonies and then early United States, and then virtually created the Midwest, a region settled faster than any other region in history. It also created the region’s cities, especially Chicago, where everything from grain elevators to the Chicago Board of Trade to the 1893 World’s Fair to time zones to the stockyards were made possible by the golden flood flowing into the city. This is a one-hour lecture about the history of corn and how it transformed the Americas before First Contact, how it traveled the world after First Contact, and its stunning impact on the creation of not only the historic Midwest but just about everything in it today.Cynthia A. Clampitt has pursued a love of culture, history, and food in thirty-seven countries on six continents (so far) but has in recent years increasingly focused on the American Midwest. ,000 years ago, a weedy grass growing in Mexico possessed of a strange trait known as a “jumping gene” transformed itself into a larger and more useful grass—the cereal grass that we would come to know as maize and then corn. Most textbooks only mention corn in the context of rescuing a few early settlers, but it in fact sustained the colonies and then early United States, and then virtually created the Midwest, a region settled faster than any other region in history. It also created the region’s cities, especially Chicago, where everything from grain elevators to the Chicago Board of Trade to the 1893 World’s Fair to time zones to the stockyards were made possible by the golden flood flowing into the city. This is a one-hour lecture about the history of corn and how it transformed the Americas before First Contact, how it traveled the world after First Contact, and its stunning impact on the creation of not only the historic Midwest but just about everything in it today.Cynthia A. Clampitt has pursued a love of culture, history, and food in thirty-seven countries on six continents (so far) but has in recent years increasingly focused on the American Midwest. Her presentation is made possible with a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council.