At the Laughing Lincoln Statue Dedication

The "Laughing Lincoln" statue was dedidicated December 2, 2018 as part of Illinois' Bicentenial Celebration. This is Lincoln before the Presidency, when he was a thirty-something young man serving in the Illinois Legislature. 

Guess who else served in the Illinois Legislature at that time? That's right! We both had pet deals we were trying to get accomplished: Lincoln wanted to move the state capitol to Springfield and I wanted to create a new county, DuPage.

On the frontier, folks get help from each other to build their homes because it takes more than one person to place the logs. There are some who say Lincoln and I indulged in a little "log-rolling" to reach our goals, but we'll never tell!

This statue sits in Naperville's Central Park where the DuPage County Courthouse used to stand. That park was particularly important to Don Wehrli whose family has a long history in Naperville so a number of his family members came to see the statue unveiled.