Issue date: 4/16/09 Section: News

The educational center and the gift shop stand empty and without tourists at the Lincoln Log Cabin historical site in Lerna on March 13 after it was closed down because of a budget cut. The center is still accessible to the public and will be re-opened on April 23. (File Photo/The Daily Eastern News)

The Lincoln Log Cabin in Lerna is scheduled to re-open next week.

Site Manager Matthew Mittelstaedt said the historic site would open by April 23.

The site has been closed since Dec. 1, after former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich cut funding to the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency during the summer.

Eleven historic sites were closed from the cuts, including four national historic landmarks.

Thirty-three employees were laid off after the closing of the sites.

"We have issued recall notices to all laid-off employees," said David Blanchette, spokesman for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.

The one full-time worker laid off at the Lincoln Log Cabin was recalled.

"We will hire seasonal staff for the summer," Mittelstaedt said.

Blanchette said the funding to re-open the sites will last through June 30, the end of the current fiscal year.

He said Gov. Pat Quinn is committed to keeping the sites open after the conclusion of the fiscal year.

Blagojevich announced on Aug. 28 that the historic sites would close after he slashed the budget for those sites in half in an effort to fix the state budget.

Lincoln Log Cabin will be open seven days a week May 1 through Labor Day, and Wednesday through Sunday the remainder of the year.

The living history program will begin soon after the reopening.

"Our living history program won't begin until the first of May," Mittelstaedt said.

He said an exhibit on the process of hand weaving would open on May 9.

Visitors to the site can also tour the log cabin of Abraham Lincoln's father, Thomas Lincoln, and his stepmother, Sarah Bush Lincoln, in the 1840s.

Lincoln was a lawyer by that time, so he did not live on the site. He did visit when traveling between Paris and Shelbyville while on the Eighth Judicial Circuit.

Also located at the site is the Sargent farm.

The farm was the home of Stephen Sargent and his wife, Nancy Chenoweth Harlan, who built a timber-frame house unlike the log cabin of the Lincolns.


The Associated Press contributed to this report.


Matt Hopf can be reached at 581-7942 or at mthopf@eiu.edu.

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