Lincoln Boyhood Historic Resource Study

CONSTRUCTION OF THE MEMORIAL BUILDING AND COURT (1938-1945)

The ILU members proposed the Memorial Building and Court as an anchor for visitor activities. In 1931, Thomas Hibben offered an elaborate design consisting of a 150-foot tower and a pipe organ, but by May 1939, his scheme was deemed to be inappropriate. Initial plans also considered locating the Memorial Building close to Nancy Lincoln's grave, but this idea, too, was discarded. Therefore, Colonel Richard Lieber, president of ILU, sought the advice of Olmsted for both the building's design and its location on the completed landscape. Olmsted responded to the ILU in 1939 with five options that revolved around placing the building at various locations. The plan that was selected involved placement of two small buildings joined by a semi-circular cloister on the south side of the plaza, where a landscaped exedra was situated (Figure 23). [229]

Figure 23: Allee and Plaza Site Plan, 1938-1944 (McEnaney, 2001: 27) (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

Plate 3: 1959 Photo of Cloister in Memorial Building

In 1940, the ILU hired National Park Service architect Richard Bishop to finalize the plans for the Memorial Building and to supervise the on-site work. Bishop reviewed the many suggestions taken from ILU members and Olmsted and combined these with his own thoughts. Bishop's plan evolved out of the design ethic that proliferated during the New Deal era. The design's emphasis on native Indiana materials, use of local craftsmen, and simplified and stylistic Classical architecture are characteristic of Federal public works projects from the 1930s. The final design and construction included two buildings, the Nancy Hanks Lincoln Hall and Abraham Lincoln Hall, which were connected by a semi-circular cloister with five, life-sized, demi-relief sculptured panels depicting the life of Abraham Lincoln (Figure 24; Plate 3). The Nancy Lincoln Hall measured thirty feet by forty-five feet, and the Abraham Lincoln Hall measured thirty feet by sixty feet. Ground was broken in 1940, the cornerstone was laid in 1941, and construction was completed in 1943. The building was set back with a hierarchy of steps, and landscape designs emphasized its place within the landscape. Edson Nott, a landscape architect with the Indiana Department of Conservation, contributed to the final landscape designs and Indiana sculptor E.H. Daniels designed the five panels. As part of this project, the 1931 flagpole was relocated from the plaza to a terrace at the north end of the allee, and stone benches that originally were relocated at the cabin site memorial were moved to the corners of the plaza. Nott also prepared several plans for plantings and landscaping at the memorial, but these were implemented on an ad hoc basis. For example, a circular walk he planned for the north end of the allee was never constructed, and the present rectilinear configuration was in place by 1936. [230]

Figure 24: Floor Plan of the Memorial Building (Outdoor Indiana, 1941: 1) (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

The sculptural panels and halls changed the symbolic character and interpretation of the site. Although the building was designated as the "Nancy Hanks Lincoln Memorial Building," published descriptions of the site begin to change following its construction. Earlier newspaper articles described the site as "sacred soil" and the memorial as the grave of the "sainted mother." The introduction of the Memorial Building and Court was seen as a memorial to the lives of Nancy Hanks and Abraham Lincoln, as well as the time they spent in Indiana. During Governor Henry F. Schricker's commemoration of the site he described it as follows:

Surely we may feel that we are on sacred ground. It contains the mortal remains of Nancy Hanks Lincoln and it was pressed for fourteen years by the bare feet of Abraham Lincoln. From it grew the bread that formed his bones as a growing boy. Surely we may feel that we are in spirit associating here with Nancy Hanks and Abraham Lincoln. We are erecting here a shrine to Motherhood and to the family hearthstone. We are memorializing democracy and religion. Here we pledge ourselves anew to freedom and union, to the cause of popular government and the American way of life and refresh ourselves anew with the principles of life that formed our pioneers. [231]

Governor Schricker's comments indicate that the shrine was increasingly being viewed as a patriotic memorial. It was common in the post-World War I and Great Depression years for both the Federal government and private organizations to commemorate the spirit of America.

At the Lincoln memorial, this was manifested in part by the Federal government's increasing role in the site's preservation, which ultimately led to the initiation of a study in 1959 to determine if the park merited inclusion in the National Park system. Among the sites photographed for the 1959 report were the railroad tracks that passed through the park (Plate 4), Lake Lincoln (Plate 5), State Route 162, which accessed the park entry (Plate 6), the allee (Plate 7), and the Memorial Building (Plate 8). Both the railroad tracks and the road were felt to detract from the park's setting, even though both elements actually predated the park's existence. The railroad tracks were laid during the 1870s, while the state highway followed an alignment that dated to the early nineteenth century.

Plate 4: 1959 Photo of Railroad Tracks that Pass Through Park

Plate 5: 1959 Photo of Lake Lincoln at Nearby Lincoln State Park

Plate 6: 1959 Photo of State Route 162 and Entry to Park

Plate 7: 1959 Photo of Allee, Looking Toward Flagpole and Cemetery

Plate 8: 1959 Photo of Interior of Nancy Hanks Lincoln Memorial Hall