 Fast-forward to this spring and Hickey noted the tree had
become diseased. It was dying and needed to come down.When the
tree was cut, Hickey really didn't want to see the beautiful old oak
destroyed, so he came up with another idea.
"We drive by the covered wagon all the time. We'd see people
stopped, looking at it, and realized there is no place for them to
just sit down and enjoy it," Hickey said. He decided that turning
the old oak into new benches for the wagon site would be the perfect
way to preserve the tree.
"In a way, I guess you could say the tree has come back home,"
Hickey smiled as he prepared to participate in a dedication service
on Saturday morning.
Hickey said that once the tree was cut down, he hired it split in
half with a large band saw. He then used a draw saw to plane the
seating area and make it smooth and even. The two half-logs were
then mounted on legs.
Hickey said he used no nails when building the benches, but
rather built them in the same manner they would have been built in
the 1800s. He pointed out pegs that are inserted in the lower
crossbar that ties all the legs together.
He had torn down an old barn where the pegs had been used to
secure joists together and had saved the pegs from the teardown. He
used those in the benches as well.
Once all the work was done, the benches were given ample coats of
weather-resistant polyurethane to help preserve their life and
color.
The benches were donated in the name of the Logan County Mounted
Police to the Abraham Lincoln Tourism Bureau of Logan County to be
placed at the covered wagon site.
The Logan County Mounted Police, of which Hickey is the captain,
was formed in the 1970s. They currently have a dozen members who
work with and for the Logan County Sheriff's Office. Hickey said the
team is called out by Sheriff Steve Nichols as needed for search and
rescue efforts.
They also represent the county in various social events such as
local parades and are usually visible at the Lincoln Art & Balloon
Festival, both downtown and at the airport.
Saturday morning Hickey was joined by two members of the group
with their horses, Mayor Keith Snyder, Darlene Begolka of the Logan
Railsplitting Association, Geoff Ladd of tourism, and Paresh Patel,
owner of the Best Western Inn, for a ribbon-cut dedication of
the benches.
Each person expressed appreciation for the donation.
Ladd had spoken earlier in the day about the benches, saying they
were a beautiful addition to the covered wagon site.
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The wagon has been a popular tourist attraction, drawing visitors
all year-round. While people were there for the ceremony Saturday, a
family from Jacksonville stopped by, and a couple out for a
motorcycle ride on a bright, sunny day stopped in as well.
The family from Jacksonville was heading out to Eaton Fields,
where the two boys would be participating in a football game against
the Lincoln Youth Football team. The family had seen the wagon and
decided to stop in for a quick peek. They read the roadside sign
that stands at the head of the wagon, chatted a minute with Mayor
Keith Snyder, then went on up the road to the football game.
The wagon was built by David Bentley, a former police officer, in
2001. For several years it stood at the Divernon exit of Interstate
55, south of Springfield.
In 2007 it was purchased by Larry Van Bibber and donated to the
tourism bureau.
When it arrived in Lincoln it was placed at the intersection of
Woodlawn Road and Lincoln Parkway.
In 2009, Paresh Patel took over the Lincoln Country Inn and
converted it to a Best Western. Patel owns the green space in front
of his motel and invited the tourism bureau to place the wagon on
his front lawn.
The wagon was brought to its new home in December of 2009. Since
then, work has been done to make the wagon more stable. A new cover
has been put on the wagon and is supposed to be more
weather-resistant than the original. Landscaping has been done
around the wagon, and now the benches seem to be the finishing
touch.
The wagon, which is 40 feet long, 12 feet wide and 25 feet tall,
is recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest
covered wagon in existence. It also features a much-larger-than-life
Abraham Lincoln seated and reading a law book.
In 2010, the wagon was also recognized by Reader's Digest as the
No. 1 Roadside Attraction in America, based on their polling of
1,100 readers.
[By NILA SMITH]
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