At noon on December 4 municipalities across Illinois conducted flag raising ceremonies to mark the beginning of the state’s bicentennial year. What better place to witness the beginning of the state’s 200th anniversary year than in the state capital? So we hopped in the car and made the two-and-a-half hour drive to Springfield, where the Illinois Bicentennial flag was to be raised atop the Old State Capitol.
The bronze sculpture of a woman standing in the rotunda of the Illinois State Capitol welcomed us with open arms. She stands directly beneath a beautiful stained-glass dome that tops the building where Illinois law is proposed, debated and put to legislative vote. Taking a look around the Italian Renaissance Revival building, statues, paintings and ornate walls and ceilings surrounded us. To learn more about the art, architecture and what goes on in the capitol, we took the free half-hour tour.
On Saturday, May 2, 2015, exactly 150 years after Abraham Lincoln was laid to rest in Springfield, Illinois, his funeral was reenacted. Six years in planning, the monumental historic Abraham Lincoln funeral reenactment included a replica funeral train, replica coffin and replica horse-drawn hearse.
A funeral procession commenced at the very train station to which Lincoln’s body was brought in 1865. It ended on Saturday at the site of the Old Capitol, where Lincoln served early in his political career, before he was elected 16th President of the United States of America.
