The Postville Courthouse State Historic Site is a replica county courthouse in

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 state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

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 territori ...

. 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 conta ...

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

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

office An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific du ...

s for the county clerk, the sheriff, 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, and the county surveyor. In addition, the county board of commissioners and the justice of the peace 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 ...

, 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 Il ...

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 a ...

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 h ...

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, 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, 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 t ...

, 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 ...

, 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 in Dearborn, Michigan; 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