The Postville Courthouse State Historic Site is a replica county

courthouse A courthouse or court house is a building that is home to a local court of law and often the regional county government as well, although this is not the case in some larger cities. The term is common in North America. In most other English-spe ...

Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincol ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The original frame courthouse was built in 1840 and later moved to

Greenfield Village The Henry Ford (also known as the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village, and as the Edison Institute) is a history museum complex in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, United States. The museum collection contains ...

in Michigan; the current courthouse, which is a close replica of the first, was built in 1953. The building's unusual history is derived from its status as one of the courthouses used by

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

as he traveled the circuit of courtrooms in central Illinois. The courthouse replica is operated by the

Illinois Historic Preservation Agency The Illinois Historic Preservation Division, formerly Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, is a governmental agency of the U.S. state of Illinois, and is a division of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. It is tasked with the duty of m ...

The courthouse

file:Logan County Courthouse.jpg, Original courthouse as reassembled in

, Dearborn, Michigan Postville, a frontier settlement, was founded in 1835 by Russell Post. In 1839, the Illinois General Assembly chartered a new county from territory undergoing settlement. The new county was named Logan, and the county's first commissioners chose Postville, located close to the center of the new county, as the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...

. A simple frame courthouse was raised in the following year. Built in an austere

Federal style Federal-style architecture is the name for the classicizing architecture built in the newly founded United States between 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815, which was heavily based on the works of Andrea Palladio with several inn ...

, the new courthouse resembled a private home. It contained not only a circuit

courtroom A courtroom is the enclosed space in which courts of law are held in front of a judge. A number of courtrooms, which may also be known as "courts", may be housed in a courthouse. In recent years, courtrooms have been equipped with audiovisual ...

, but also

office An office is a space where an Organization, organization's employees perform Business administration, administrative Work (human activity), work in order to support and realize objects and Goals, plans, action theory, goals of the organizati ...

s for the

county clerk A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service ...

, the

sheriff A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly transla ...

, the county

recorder of deeds Recorder of deeds or deeds registry is a government office tasked with maintaining public records and documents, especially records relating to real estate ownership that provide persons other than the owner of a property with real rights over ...

, the

coroner A coroner is a government or judicial official who is empowered to conduct or order an inquest into Manner of death, the manner or cause of death, and to investigate or confirm the identity of an unknown person who has been found dead within th ...

, and the county

surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

. In addition, the county board of commissioners and the

justice of the peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

sat in the courtroom during their times of duty. The Postville Courthouse served the people of Logan County for only eight years, from 1840 until 1848. In the latter year, the people of a nearby town,

Mount Pulaski, Illinois Mount Pulaski is a city in Logan County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,566 at the 2010 census, and 1,481 at a 2018 estimate. It is the home of the Mount Pulaski Courthouse State Historic Site. The city is named in honor of Polish R ...

, offered to take over the county seat in exchange for building a brick courthouse for the county's use. Concerned about the possibility of a courthouse fire and the destruction of the county's legal records, the county's leaders accepted the offer. The new courthouse, which still survives, is now the

Mount Pulaski Courthouse State Historic Site The Mount Pulaski Courthouse State Historic Site is a historic county courthouse located in Mount Pulaski, Illinois, United States. It was the county seat of Logan County from 1848 until 1855. It is one of only two remaining courthouses from Ill ...

Abraham Lincoln

After seven years in Mount Pulaski from 1848 until 1855, the county seat was moved to a site by the newly built

Chicago and Alton Railroad The Alton Railroad was the final name of a railroad linking Chicago to Alton, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri. Its predecessor, the Chicago and Alton Railroad , was purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1931 an ...

tracks. The new county seat, which was close to Postville, was named

Lincoln, Illinois Lincoln is a city in Logan County, Illinois, United States. First settled in the 1830s, it is the only town in the United States that was named for Abraham Lincoln before he became president; he practiced law there from 1847 to 1859. Lincoln is ho ...

after the central Illinois lawyer. A fire in Lincoln in 1857 did indeed destroy Logan County's court records. As a result, little is known about the legal cases at Postville in which Lincoln was involved. During the active use of the Postville courthouse, Lincoln was a young lawyer who was struggling to make a name for himself. The state of Illinois law at that time did not encourage specialization, and Lincoln would have taken any case for which he was hired. Although law on the frontier was competitive, Lincoln made many friends in Logan County at this time. In 1846, the people of Central Illinois elected him to serve a term in the

U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

, and in 1853, the people of central Logan County named their new county seat for him. The new town of Lincoln grew so fast that by the 1860s, it had swallowed up nearby Postville, which was annexed and ceased to exist as an autonomous municipality. Neighbors of the old Postville courthouse passed down stories. One well-corroborated tale says that the field across from the courthouse, then a vacant lot, was used by Lincoln and other young lawyers as a place to play

town ball Town ball, townball, or Philadelphia town ball, is a bat-and-ball, safe haven game played in North America in the 18th and 19th centuries, which was similar to rounders and was a precursor to modern baseball. In some areas—such as Philadelph ...

, a 19th-century variety of

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

, while the counselors were waiting for their cases to come up on the docket.

Later history

After Postville became a neighborhood of Lincoln, the courthouse became a private home and gradually faded in importance. In 1929, inventor

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that mi ...

, eager to buy historic old buildings, purchased the old structure for $8,000. His contractors dismantled the frame structure, dug up the foundation, and moved everything to the

Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village The Henry Ford (also known as the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village, and as the Edison Institute) is a history museum complex in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, United States. The museum collection contains ...

Dearborn, Michigan Dearborn is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 109,976. Dearborn is the seventh most-populated city in Michigan and is home to the largest Muslim population in the United States pe ...

; the reconstructed Postville Courthouse, built with original materials, still stands in Michigan today. The people of Lincoln were troubled by losing this item from their heritage, and asked the state of Illinois to try to make up part of the loss. The state built a replica courthouse in 1953, using the dimensions and data of the original building. This replica, furnished as a courtroom of the 1840s, serves as the current Postville Courthouse State Historic Site.

External links

Postville Courthouse State Historic Site
- Illinois Historic Preservation Agency
The 1953 Postville Courthouse, Lincoln IL
- visiting information
Eighth Judicial Circuit (1847 to 1853)
{{coord, 40, 8, 50, N, 89, 22, 49, W, type:landmark_region:US-IL, display=title Government buildings completed in 1840 Government buildings completed in 1953 Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area County courthouses in Illinois History of Illinois Illinois State Historic Sites Lincoln, Illinois Replica buildings Law museums in Illinois Museums in Logan County, Illinois Protected areas established in 1953 1953 establishments in Illinois The Henry Ford