As a proud Hoosier with a tendency toward Lincoln hero-worship (I named my boy after him), I am very happy about the recent news that Lincoln items formerly displayed at the closed Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne will remain in Indiana.
A coalition led by the Indiana State Museum and the Allen County Public library were successful in convincing the Lincoln Financial Foundation to keep the $20 million collection in Indiana.
The collection will be split between the Allen County Public Library and the State Museum, with the library in general receiving the collection’s books, documents and manuscripts. The state museum will get the three-dimensional artifacts.
The Indiana coalition edged out, among others, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, Ford’s Theatre and President Lincoln’s Cottage. Congratulations to everyone involved on their hard work.
This is significant and surprising victory for our state. That is a major collection. It is too bad it has not received more attention from Hoosiers over the years.