Battered Lincoln bust finds safe harbor at Chicago library: ‘It’s happy in its new home’

The Abraham Lincoln bust that once decorated a Depression-era gasoline station is now on display at the West Englewood Library branch. Photo credit WBBM Newsradio

By Mike Ramsey

(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Chicago has no shortage of tributes to Abraham Lincoln, from his namesake Lincoln Avenue to the regal statues of the 16th president at prominent city parks.

But it’s a mysterious, battered concrete bust of Honest Abe that has captured an outsized interest, especially in recent years.

For decades, the Lincoln likeness sat on a stone base at the corner of 69th Street and Wolcott Avenue in the city’s West Englewood community.

The commonly accepted story is the 5-foot-tall ensemble anchored a gas station beginning in the late-1920s at a time when Wolcott was still known as Lincoln Street. It’s not clear whether the owner had the figure specially cast or if the piece was salvage from somewhere else.

Either way, the gas station eventually disappeared. The statue remained. As the once-prosperous neighborhood declined, the orphaned sculpture bore the pits and scars of the reversal, losing its nose somewhere along the way.

Photographer David Wiegers, whose passion is taking pictures of Lincoln statues (he recently published a worldwide survey of sculptures dedicated to the martyred president), said his shots of the forsaken Lincoln, tagged with graffiti in an urban environment, has drawn the most interest from viewers.

The Lincoln bust in its previous home, alone, at the corner of 69th and Wolcott. It was the frequent target of vandals. Photo credit Photo courtesy of Images of Abraham Lincoln. David Wiegers -- Photographer

“It’s so random,” Wiegers said.

The statue was painted countless times, usually white. While some locals appreciated the corner remnant, others were not so kind. Vandals regularly took their turns, although none was able to deliver the coup de grâce.

Things came to a head in August 2017, after someone torched the bust. Sad images of a charred Abraham Lincoln circulated widely. Ray Lopez, alderman of the neighboring 15th Ward, intervened.

The infamous torching incident of August 2017: Vandals set the concrete bust of Lincoln ablaze, prompting a Chicago alderman to have the piece removed. Photo credit Office of Ald. Ray Lopez/Facebook

“If it hadn’t been for one of my residents contacting me and telling me, ‘Hey, did you know they’re starting the statue on fire?’ I probably would not have even known about it. But we took action to save this neighborhood relic,” Lopez says.

City crews removed the bust and its base and put them in storage while plans came together for the statue’s relocation. The sculpture ultimately was installed at the West Englewood Library Branch near 63rd and Ashland and dedicated in August 2018.

Beyond cleaning it, there was no attempt to restore the bust, Lopez said. It now sports a natural buff tone.

“The last thing we want to do is get the image wrong or make it a target again. So, right now, it’s happy in its new home with its natural face,” he said.

In 2020, the figure was briefly in the limelight again. Erroneous online reports — tied to photos of the 2017 arson — claimed activists had attacked the statue during the civil unrest that followed George Floyd’s killing. This false narrative was tamped down by The Associated Press.

In this photo from August 2018, the bust of Abraham Lincoln is formally dedicated at its new home, the West Englewood Library Branch. Photo credit Maurice Thomas Jr.

The bust currently sits within a locked, gated courtyard, across the street from a storefront church and next to the Mitzi Freidheim Englewood Child & Family Center. A half-dozen blocks to the east is the Chicago Police Department’s 7th District Station.

“People who are familiar with the story appreciate it being in the neighborhood still,” Lopez says. “I do know that it’s in a safer location, where it’s not being targeted for vandalism every weekend. And I believe this gives us a wonderful opportunity to educate our youth to learn about Abraham Lincoln and his contributions to our country.”