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Adlai Stevenson, vice president under Grover
Cleveland, once visited the Old Salem Chautauqua just south of Petersburg.
So did populist lawyer William Jennings Bryan, African-American educator
Booker T. Washington, and firebrand preacher Billy Sunday. The
Petersburg-area Chautauqua, part of a national movement of educational
assemblies that exposed participants to the great ideas of the time,
existed from 1898 to 1942 and was one of the nation’s most popular. Although the Chautauqua is no longer there, the
Petersburg area offers lots of interesting sights besides Lincoln’s
New Salem State Historical Site. The historic Menard County Courthouse,
open during regular business hours, contains historic artifacts. The Edgar
Lee Masters boyhood home, open seasonally, contains some of the original
furniture, but the primary emphasis is on Masters’ writing, including
the well-known Spoon River Anthology and lesser-known works. The home hosts special events
periodically. The Menard County Museum provides a rich history of
surrounding communities. Petersburg’s newest attraction is the Stier
Trolley Express, owned and operated by Petersburg native Mike Stier, who
previously worked for several years on the riverboat Talisman, which used
to navigate the Sangamon River near New Salem, and earlier still on a
Mississippi River riverboat. He’s now transportation director for the
Porta schools, in Petersburg. Right now the trolley leaves every hour on
the hour from the visitor center at Lincoln’s New Salem Historic Site
on weekends (starting at 10 a.m. Saturday and noon on Sunday), but starting
in June it will run Tuesday-Sunday. Pulling out of New Salem, the trolley takes visitors
off the main road and past Lake Petersburg and past Oakland Cemetery, where
Ann Rutledge — Lincoln’s first sweetheart, according to legend
— and Masters are buried. Stier points out Victorian homes built in
the 1860s and 1870s. There is the home of Hobart Hamilton, who owned the
first newspaper in Petersburg, and the home of Thompson Ware McNeely, who
represented the 9th Congressional District from 1868 to 1870. The trolley moves past the mansion where the closing
scenes of The Awakening Land were filmed. Much of the film, a mid-1970s miniseries that
starred Hal Holbrook and Elizabeth Montgomery, was shot in New Salem. All
of these homes are currently occupied, and several have been turned into
bed & breakfasts. The trolley moves on past the Petersburg Presbyterian
Church, which boasts a Tiffany window. Many of the older homes in the town
contain glass that is stained, frosted, or leaded. Once the trolley reaches downtown Petersburg, visitors
may get off and visit myriad gift shops, antique stores, and cozy
restaurants, and the trolley will pick them up in another hour.
The Stier Trolley Express historical tours start from
the New Salem Visitors Center at Lincoln’s New Salem Historic Site.
Tickets can be purchased at the Lincoln League Bookstore, just east of the
visitors center. For more information about Petersburg and Menard County
attractions, go to www.visitmenardcounty.com.
Linda Hughes of Springfield is a regular contributor.
This article appears in May 15-21, 2008.
