Abe Lincoln statue may be on top of missing monument

PEORIA, Ill. -- Honest Abe may have been trying to point out the answer to a mystery involving a monument to Peoria's founders all along.

A Lincoln statue depicting the former president pointing symbolically at the line he drew in the sand against slavery may be on top of the missing monument, a boulder with a plaque bolted to one side.

Workers digging the foundation for the statue on Peoria County Courthouse grounds a year ago found a boulder about 3 feet deep.

"People talked about it, but nobody wanted to dig it out," said Lionel Kinney, who helped raise money for the statue and was present for its placement. "At the time, nobody thought anything of it."

Concrete for the foundation was poured over the boulder. Kinney, 70, said he thought the rock was used as ground fill during the present courthouse's construction until a friend who saw a newspaper story about the missing monument called him.

The boulder, with a plaque on it listing members of Peoria's first county commission, was placed there in April 1935. It has been missing since the old courthouse was demolished in 1964.

The rock workers found had no plaque on its visible side.

Jim Cummings, a retired Peoria lawyer who helped raise money for the Lincoln statue, said he doubted a monument of historical significance would have been buried. He also doubts the boulder was stolen and considers its location a mystery.

"You'd have to be a little crazy to collect big stones with plaques on them," he said.

History buff Pat Goitein, who has been looking for the monument for two years, plans to compare photos of the monument to one taken of the boulder under the statue. Even if they match, she said, she won't try to have the statue raised.

"That'd be asking an awful lot," she said.