'See America Week' activities May 5-13 at Springfield's Union Station

[May 02, 2012]  SPRINGFIELD -- Exhibitors, gift drawings and more await visitors to downtown Springfield's Union Station Visitors Center during national "See America Week," being observed May 5-13.

Area tourist attractions and tourism agencies will have exhibits set up inside Union Station to promote the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Route 66, Illinois State Museum, Lincoln Home, Lincoln Tomb, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation, Lake Shelbyville, Amtrak, Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau, Springfield Sliders, Grand Army of the Republic, Looking for Lincoln, Springfield Walks, Illinois State Police Heritage Museum, Lincoln Memorial Gardens, Great River Road, Illinois State Military Museum, Carpenter Street Hotel, and state-operated historic sites.

Visitors may register for prize drawings that include travel on Amtrak, event tickets, souvenirs and gift certificates.

Congress first established National Tourism Week, now See America Week, in 1983. Travel industry leaders and public relations professionals were quick to take on the management and evolution of this event. See America Week is now an annual event in which hundreds of communities across the nation celebrate tourism awareness, the vital economic benefits of the travel industry and the substantial contributions travel has to the cultural and social well-being of the nation.

Union Station Visitors Center includes tourism information services and is part of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum complex. Union Station is open free of charge daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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