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Land of Lincoln
Bicentennial is perfect time to explore memorial garden

In February, our nation kicked off a year-long celebration to commemorate the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. Tourists and history buffs will retrace Lincoln’s steps through Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois, following a path that led from a small rural homestead to our nation’s highest office.

They’ll make the trek to the capital, visiting the Lincoln Museum, the Old State Capitol, the home where Lincoln lived, and the tomb where he is buried.

Before they leave Springfield, if they’re fortunate, they’ll have discovered a sedate, wooded garden that serves as the perfect place to pause and reflect on the man who shaped a nation.

Located on the east shore of Lake Springfield, Lincoln Memorial Garden was established in 1936 by Harriet Knudson, a member of the Springfield Civic Garden Club. Knudson wanted to create a “living memorial to Abraham Lincoln.” The garden was the result.

In order to design a garden worthy of Lincoln’s name, Knudson enlisted the vision Jens Jensen, one of our country’s foremost landscape architects. Prior to creating Lincoln Memorial Garden, Jensen had designed Chicago city parks, the Michigan estates of Henry and Edsel Ford, and other parks throughout the Midwest.

A contemporary and associate of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, Jensen was a leader of the prairie school of landscape architecture and one of the state’s earliest conservationists.

The original 63-acre-site chosen for the garden by Jensen consisted of farm fields, woods and small streams that fed Lake Springfield. The first plantings were made in November 1936. Today, the garden includes mature upland woods broken by prairie openings.

The garden’s plants are native to Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois—the three states that Lincoln called home. The oaks, maples and hickories, as well as the prairie grasses and forbs, would have been familiar to Lincoln, and reflect the landscape of his time.

Jensen’s basic plan for the Garden—and what you’ll find today—is a series of interconnected paths bordered by arrangements of native plants. The paths are linked by eight council rings, or circular stone benches, that were designed to foster fellowship and encourage small gatherings.

The lanes of the garden extend from the rings, and groupings of native plants are found along the trails. The trails will lead you through groves of oak and hickory, into open meadows decked out in sun-loving prairie species, and around groupings of small flowering trees and shrubs that divide meadows from woods.

Today, Lincoln Memorial Garden includes more than 100 acres, including the original Garden, a walnut grove, land east and south of the original property, and a 29-acre tract known as the Ostermeier Prairie Center, which includes a 100-year-old restored farm house, a barn and a pond. The farm’s pasture and cropland have been restored as examples of the prairie found in central Illinois during pioneer days. A handicapped accessible interpretive trail, restrooms and parking area have been added to the site.

The Lincoln Memorial Garden is located at 2301 East Lake Shore Drive, Springfield, Ill. For online mapping, the zip is 62712-8908. For more information, call (217) 529-1111 or visit http://www.lmgnc.org.