A block away stands a crumbling wall of giant stones – all that remains of the Alton Prison. Decrepit conditions and overcrowding forced its closing in 1860, only to reopen two years later to jail mostly Confederate prisoners where more than 1,800 died from disease. The soldiers are buried in the Confederate Cemetery — a mass grave on a grassy hill in a quiet Alton neighborhood – where bronze tablets list their names at the foot of a 58-foot stone obelisk. Alton was once the home of a Lincoln contemporary, Senator Lyman Trumbull, who helped write the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery. The whitewashed Trumbull Home is a private residence and a National Historic Landmark. The 110-foot Elijah Lovejoy Monument in the Alton City Cemetery pays tribute to the abolitionist killed by pro-slavery rioters storming his newspaper warehouse to destroy its printing presses.
And yet another monument to the Confederate prisoners who died stands on Smallpox Island. To get there, I drive across the Mississippi on the landmark double steel-framed, cable-stayed Clark Bridge. Formerly Sunflower Island at Missouri’s shoreline, the island’s name changed after a quarantine hospital opened to treat soldiers succumbing to smallpox. ICONIC ROUTE 66 MEMORIBILIA Neon signs once lit up the night along Route 66 in Springfield, iconic feature of the restaurants and hotels vital to motorists passing through. Many can still be seen at the Ace Sign Company, a museum within a working factory. “We’re one of the few sign companies in the United States that has an operational neon plant to this day,” says company CEO Todd Bringuet, a sixth- generation sign maker of his family business. “Neon is a dying art in many respects.” Yet, tucked to the sides and hanging high on the walls of the factory’s production area are dozens of the signs with glowing neon bulbs and cartoon-like caricatures, including beer and coffee signs, motel names and others, three- fourths of them company originals. Ace recently renovated the Sonrise Donuts and Coffee Bar sign topped with yellow bulbs signifying a rising sun, once a popular Springfield stop. Route 66 Motorheads Grill, Bar & Museum, housed in a former Stuckey’s store off Interstate 55, combines owner Ron Metzger’s love of cars, motorcycles, and the nostalgic landmarks of the famous highway. Neon beer and restaurant signs hang on the walls. “This town is full of racing cars
One of the Route 66 neon signs at the Ace Sign Company Museum.
The Elijah Lovejoy Monument.
LINCOLN’S ILLINOIS
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