World's Largest Covered Wagon

The pairing of Abraham Lincoln with a covered wagon is more deliberate than it first appears. Lincoln, Illinois was platted in 1853 as the county seat of newly-organized Logan County, and the town was named for Abraham Lincoln — then a 44-year-old circuit-riding lawyer based in Springfield — at the suggestion of the three town founders who had hired Lincoln as their legal counsel for the town's incorporation. Lincoln himself was reportedly bemused by the gesture and, according to local oral tradition that has been preserved in town histories since the 19th century, told the founders that he had 'never known anything named Lincoln to amount to much.' That self-deprecating quote is widely attributed to Lincoln in Lincoln, Illinois town lore.

The covered wagon imagery references both the pioneer settlement of central Illinois prairie in the 1850s and Lincoln's circuit-riding years as an Eighth Judicial Circuit lawyer. Lincoln traveled by horse, on foot, and occasionally in shared wagons between county-seat courthouses across central Illinois from roughly 1839 through 1859, and the Postville Courthouse (now preserved as a replica two miles from the covered wagon) was one of the courthouses on his regular circuit before Logan County's seat moved to the new town of Lincoln. The 'reading Lincoln' pose inside the wagon — book open, head bent — is a direct visual reference to the circuit-riding years when Lincoln spent long hours reading law books between court appearances.

Artist David Bentley has been clear in interviews that the wagon is intended as Lincoln-the-lawyer rather than Lincoln-the-president. The sculpture deliberately avoids the iconic seated-statue or standing-orator poses associated with Springfield's Lincoln Tomb and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum, choosing instead a quieter image of Lincoln during the years when the town that would bear his name was just being platted. The choice is what makes the sculpture genuinely meaningful for Lincoln, Illinois rather than feeling like a generic Lincoln statue dropped into a town that happens to share his name.

David Bentley, a Lincoln-area artist and fabricator, began the covered wagon project in late 1999 with seed funding from the Lincoln/Logan County Convention and Visitors Bureau and additional contributions from the Best Western Lincoln Inn, which donated the lawn site and ongoing maintenance support. The original concept emerged from local tourism discussions about how Lincoln could distinguish itself on the Route 66 corridor from the much-larger Lincoln presence in Springfield 30 miles south. A roadside giant — large enough to be visible from Interstate 55 and memorable enough to pull travelers off the highway — was the consensus answer.

Construction took roughly 18 months. The wagon body was built first: a welded steel frame approximately 40 feet long and 12 feet wide, with curved steel ribs supporting the canvas-arch roof. The roof itself is fiberglass molded to mimic the canvas-and-rope appearance of an authentic prairie schooner, and the wagon wheels are over-scale wooden-look fiberglass replicas mounted on steel hubs. The wheel-rim spokes are individually fabricated. The whole structure was painted with weather-resistant exterior coatings designed to survive central Illinois winters and summers without significant fading.

The Lincoln figure was sculpted separately in Bentley's workshop. The 12-foot figure is a hollow fiberglass shell over a steel armature, with the face based on the well-documented 1860s photographic portraits of Lincoln (specifically the seated-portrait poses, which is what allowed the figure to be designed as a seated figure inside the wagon). Period clothing details — the stovepipe hat brim, the coat lapels, the book and reading-glasses — were sculpted in fiberglass and painted. The figure was installed by crane in May 2001 and the full sculpture was dedicated in June 2001 with a small ceremony attended by Bentley, the visitors bureau, and local Lincoln Heritage Museum staff.

The wagon sits on the front lawn of the Best Western Plus Lincoln Inn at 1750 5th Street, on the east side of Lincoln approximately one mile from the historic downtown square. Parking is available in the hotel's main lot, and pedestrian access to the lawn is unrestricted regardless of whether visitors are hotel guests. There is no admission fee, no gift shop on site (though postcards of the wagon are sold at the hotel front desk), and no scheduled programming — the wagon is simply a roadside sculpture to walk up to, photograph, and continue on your way.

Photography is best in late morning (the sun lights Lincoln's face directly through the wagon opening) and again in late afternoon (the side-lit golden hour shows the wagon's wheels and the canvas-arch roof to good effect). The wagon is lit at night with mounted spotlights, making it photographable in evening hours as well, though without the natural light variations the daytime hours provide. Cloudy days produce flatter but adequately documentary lighting.

Most Route 66 travelers combine the wagon with a 20-30 minute downtown Lincoln walking circuit. The Postville Courthouse State Historic Site (a 1953 replica of the 1840s Logan County courthouse where Lincoln practiced as a circuit lawyer) is two miles west at 914 5th Street; the Lincoln Heritage Museum at Lincoln College is roughly the same distance at 1115 Nicholson Road; and the Lincoln watermelon christening monument — marking the spot where Lincoln allegedly broke open a watermelon and used the juice to 'christen' the new town in August 1853 — sits at the intersection of Broadway Street and Chicago Street near the old Chicago & Alton railroad tracks. The combination of all four sites produces a satisfying half-day Lincoln-themed itinerary.

Lincoln sits at roughly the geographic midpoint of Illinois Route 66, about 160 miles south of Chicago and 30 miles north of Springfield. For most travelers driving the Mother Road south from Chicago over a two-day itinerary, Lincoln is the natural late-morning or lunchtime stop on day two — after an overnight in Pontiac or Bloomington-Normal and before continuing into Springfield for the afternoon Lincoln Presidential Library visit. The wagon photograph fits efficiently into this rhythm: roughly 15 minutes for the photo, another 30-40 minutes for the downtown Lincoln sites, an hour for lunch (The Tropics, the local supper-club institution, is the standard recommendation for travelers willing to stay through the dinner hour), and back on the road by mid-afternoon.

For travelers based in Springfield who want a half-day side trip, Lincoln is a 35-40 minute drive north via I-55 and is the standard recommendation when Springfield hotel concierges are asked about nearby Route 66 day trips. The Atlanta Paul Bunyan Statue — a 19-foot 'muffler man' Paul Bunyan figure holding a giant hot dog — is five miles north of Lincoln in the small town of Atlanta, and pairing the Lincoln wagon with the Atlanta Paul Bunyan produces a satisfying two-roadside-giant photo itinerary that captures the eccentric spirit of Illinois Route 66 in about three hours total.

For families, the wagon is one of the more genuinely kid-friendly free attractions on Illinois Route 66. The over-scale Lincoln figure produces immediate visual delight in younger children, the open lawn provides space to run around, and the lack of admission or required programming means a stop can be calibrated to whatever attention span the kids bring that day. Pack a picnic and the wagon lawn becomes a 30-minute outdoor lunch break between the longer driving segments north and south of Lincoln.