'Build Your Own Lincoln Sites' adds new scale models

[December 31, 2009]  SPRINGFIELD -- Anyone with a computer, printer, scissors and glue can now be the proud owner of five new scale models of Abraham Lincoln sites, including his home and tomb, joining five other scale models that debuted earlier this year.

The Illinois Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission's "Build Your Own Lincoln Sites" project now offers HO-scale models of the Lincoln Home and Lincoln Tomb, both in Springfield; Beecher Hall in Jacksonville; the Shastid Cabin in Pittsfield; and the Vandalia Statehouse. Each of these five historic building models can be printed on your own card stock and assembled and glued together for display. The models can be accessed free of charge at www.lookingforlincoln.com or www.illinois-history.gov, and each has easy-to-follow assembly instructions that will have you building history in no time.

The five latest entries in Build Your Own Lincoln Sites complete a series of 10 and join five that debuted earlier this year: the Old State Capitol and the Great Western Depot in Springfield, the Berry-Lincoln Store at Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site near Petersburg, Old Main at Knox College in Galesburg, and the Thomas Lincoln Home at Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site near Charleston.

The buildings range in difficulty and scale from the Thomas Lincoln Home, measuring 2.5 by 6 inches and requiring two sheets of card stock, to the Old State Capitol model's more monumental 18-by-24-inch size that requires 41 sheets of card stock.

The Lincoln sites models were patterned after the historic building models that are available as part of the "Build Your Own Main Street" section at www.illinois-history.gov. Ten buildings from Illinois Main Street downtowns are available to download from that site.

The Build Your Own Lincoln Sites is a project of the Illinois Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and the Old State Capitol Foundation. The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency provided project assistance. Michael Goebel-Bain is the artist who designed the models.

[Text from file received from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency]