Land of Lincoln Tour Truncated

My plan for this weekend was to visit a few of the Abraham Lincoln historical sites in and around Springfield. My tourism meta-plan is to avoid elitist smirking at unsophisticated tourist offerings. So, I will skip the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

But I can still engage in a little elitist smirking at descriptions of tourist offerings. An extended description of the Lincoln Museum in the Capital City Visitor, a local tourist guide, includes the following:

-"Professional actors read Lincoln's words. One highlight: a simulated television director's studio where news stories and commericals for Lincoln's 1860 presidential campaign are continuously played on video monitors as though the election were being held in modern times." Wouldn't it be infinitely more interesting to be given a sense of how politicians waged election campaigns in the nineteenth century?

-"Part two of 'The Journey' beings in a replica of the White House's Blue Room, where Mary Todd Lincoln appears to extend her arms in welcome." (While actually wishing all these strangers would stop visiting)

-"In ... a 17-minute layered-projection show, 'Lincoln's Eyes,' ... the seats tremble when cannons are 'fired' into the audience, and other special effects add dimension to the story."

Here's something I'd been wondering about: Lincoln worked as a lawyer and was elected to the Senate while living in Springfield, but he was born in Kentucky, grew up in Indiana, and earned his legacy while living in Washington, D.C. So how exactly did Springfield become Lincoln's historical center of gravity? By arm-twisting and gall, it turns out. The Capitol City Visitor explains: "Within hours of Lincoln's death, the Springfield City Council had passed a special resolution seeking to secure the return of the city's favorite son. During the Washington, D.C. funeral, about 400 people from Illinois attended a special meeting in the White House's East Room to lobby for the body... Mary [Todd Lincoln] initially resisted. Her first choice was Chicago, followed by Washington."

I'm off to Lincoln's Tomb.