In his 1859 autobiography, Abraham Lincoln referred to the farm where he lived with his family for fourteen years. He lived his formative years, from age 7 to 21, in the home where he lost his mother, where his step-mother continued to encourage his love for reading and learning, and where he was molded into the man who is often regarded as America’s greatest president. You can visit the very land where Lincoln grew up, in what is now Lincoln City, Indiana, at the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial and Living Historical farm.
We reached our new home about the time the State came into the Union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals, still in the woods. There I grew up.” –A. Lincoln
You’ll discover hands-on science, local history, art galleries, a planetarium, and a transportation center all under one roof at the Evansville Museum—well, two roofs, really—and you can cover it all in one afternoon.
Start in the science gallery where adults are as anxious as children to try the interactive demonstrations. Watch clouds form, see your image reflected upside-down in a mirror, or drop a coin into the gravity well and watch it spin ‘round and ‘round as it descends to the bottom. Moving into the history exhibitions, see replicas of dresses worn by movie stars and lots of movie posters, which demonstrate the popularity of the silver screen in Evansville, formerly home to twelve theaters. Many of the theaters began as vaudeville venues and were converted to movie houses in the early 20th century.
Walk down a brick paved street of yesteryear and peer into the windows of homes and businesses.
The museum includes an extensive exhibit about life during World War II. During the war, Evansville became the quintessential Rosie the Riveter town as women took on factory jobs while the men went to war.
The museum’s second level houses art galleries. Permanent exhibits in the Crescent Galleries showcase American and European art dating back as far as the 16th century. The remaining galleries feature temporary exhibitions: some part of the museum’s collection, some regional art, and some touring collections.
The Immersive Theater, the planetarium, offers several different shows each day. One show is specifically geared to young children and another to older children. “Skies Over Evansville” reproduces the night sky, and a museum staff member points out constellations and planets, and answers audience questions.
Next door, the Evansville Museum Transportation Center (EMTRAC) invites you to explore the Evansville’s transportation history, from 19th century riverboats and carriages to steam fire engines and locomotives.
Outside, ring the bell of a Milwaukee Road steam engine and walk through the Tennessee Club Car, the very car that General Dwight D. Eisenhower used during his presidency campaign and later was used by Lady Bird Johnson as she campaigned for her husband’s presidency.
A 1920s railroad car attached to the back of the EMTRAC building houses a model railroad that you view from inside the museum. The layout represents Evansville during the 1950s.
Spend just a few hours in the Evansville Museum, and you’ll get a good feel for the area culture and history—and will have had fun learning about it.
The Evansville Museum is located at 411 S.E. Riverside Drive, Evansville Indiana. Check the web site for hours and admission rates.
Disclosure: My visit to the Evansville Museum was hosted by the Evansville Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Evansville Museum, but any opinions expressed in this post are my own.
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During World War II, there were more LSTs built in Evansville, Indiana, than in any other inland location. It’s fitting, then, that Evansville is home to the only operational naval museum in the nation, the LST 325. On a tour of the ship, you’ll learn about its operations and how military personnel lived on board. Read more
Walk into the Reitz Home, and you step back into the lifestyle of the wealthiest family in early Evansville. Extensive use of stained glass, chandeliers, intricate inlaid wood floor patterns, Moorish doorway screens, and fireplaces of the finest materials like white onyx tell you that no ordinary family lived in this Victorian mansion. Religious icons throughout the house tell more about the family, that they were devout Catholics. This was the home of John Augustus Reitz, Prussian-born lumber baron and town philanthropist. Mr. Reitz, his wife Gertrude, and eight of their ten children (two were married by the time the home was built in 1871) lived in the home.
After John August and Gertrude passed on, the unmarried children continued to live together. They redecorated the home and updated it with electricity and plumbing, including Evansville’s first toilet, still in the home.
The last Reitz family member to die, Christine, had given many of the home’s contents to neighbors and staff members. Two heirs donated the home itself to the Daughters of Isabella, and it eventually was sold to the Evansville Diocese and became home to Evansville’s first bishop.
In 1974 the home was donated to the Reitz Home Preservation Society, and restoration work began. Some of the furnishings in the home are original to the Reitz family, having been donated back by the those they were given to, and some are representative of the furnishings that would have been in the home when the Reitz family was living there.
The major part of the restoration is completed, but as Matt Rowe, Executive Director of the Reitz Home Museum and Chairman of Evansville’s Historic Preservation Commission, pointed out, work on an old home is never finished.
Watch the video below to see more photos of the restored mansion.
After your tour of the Reitz Home, take a self-guided tour through the neighborhood where you’ll see more homes originally owned by Evansville’s elites and now restored or undergoing restoration. Numerous Queen Anne homes are interspersed with prairie,craftsman, and many other architectural styles.
Carriage houses have been restored, too.
Just as the Reitz home, owned by a lumber baron, made extensive use of wood, the home built by the local brick baron used brick just as artfully, even in the sidewalk outside the home.
As we strolled on our tour, we were fortunate to be invited by Elaine, the current owner of the Fendrich home, to step inside to see the restoration progress. John Fendrich, heir to the Fendrich Cigar Company and the original owner of the home, was married to one of the Reitz daughters. The completely restored dining room, including the silver wall sconces, the parlor with its lovely fireplace and the kitchen with the original icebox are evidence of the meticulous detail that has gone into the restoration.
Preservation continues throughout the historic neighborhood, once run down with many of the homes turned multifamily, but now returning to its grand glory.
The Reitz Home Museum, located at 224 S.E. First Street in Evansville, Indiana, is open for tours Tuesday through Sunday. Check the web site for hours and admission.
Disclosure: My visit to the Reitz Home Museum and a tour of the surrounding neighborhood was hosted by the Evansville Convention & Visitors Bureau and Reitz Home Museum, but any opinions expressed in this post are my own.
Thank you for reading Midwest Wanderer. If you enjoyed this post and would like an e-mail notification when other posts are published, enter your e-mail address below and click Subscribe. Be sure to click the link when you get the e-mail asking you to confirm.
