World's Largest Railsplitter Covered Wagon — Attraction in Lincoln

Review Date: March 11th, 2014

To quote my friend; “It’s not even covered!”

Now, to be fair and to preface this blog post, we did stop by after it received some storm damage. So the state it was in when we visited is not a representation of what it actually looks like. The low score is from my initial visit. Should I happen to make it back, I will update the score and post new photos to reflect what it really presents. Looking into it for this blog post, I would rather like to see it in it’s former glory as it looks really cool!

Okay, so with all that in mind, my friends and I left Springfield after a day of exploring. On the way home, we saw the sign for this covered wagon. I asked everyone if they wanted to stop and check it out. They didn’t care… so 10 minutes later, we find ourselves looking at the wagon… or the damaged wagon. As stated above, it seemed to have received some storm damage and was in the process of being restored, so it was in really bad shape.

But we had some fun taking goofy photos in front of it. It was muddy out, so we couldn’t explore around the area too much. I have visited Lincoln, IL a few times since this photo was taken, so next time I am down there, I hope to have new/better photos of the wagon. It really does look cool from seeing other people’s online photos.

Plus, it’s a nod to Illinois and the USA’s history since it has Abraham Lincoln on it.

The link to the website provided below is not to the Wagon’s actual website… because it does not have one. But I do like Atlas Obscura, so I linked to their website. That way there is some reference material if you are interested in learning more...

Majestic... Awe Inspiring... The births of the 3 children, my wedding day, and now the day that I visited The World's Largest Covered Wagon... these are the days in my life that I will never forget. I'm not sure who maintains the list of the 7 Wonders of the World, but I just found number 8!!! An absolute treasure to see. Also, there was a reasonable comfortable park bench that allowed me to analyze the 49er running back situation and set my fantasy football lineup. And then I was able to gaze at this impressive structure which brought goose bumps to my arms. Merely being near this amazing structure was truly inspiring. Looking at its greatness, inspired me to do something great! Perhaps it would inspire me to be the greatest husband/father on earth! Nah... I have decided that now I will build The World's Largest Covered Wagon. My wagon will be twice as large as this one and 100 times more impressive. Also, my park benches will be cushioned, and you will be able to talk to Abraham Lincoln. Abe will be high tech and powered by artificial intelligence that will allow him to give free fantasy football advice. I hope when people from all over the world come to see my covered wagon, they also will be inspired and build even larger covered wagons. Then there will be unreasonably large covered wagons everywhere! This will cause canvas manufacturers to acquire unprecedented wealth. The new wealth from the canvas manufacturers will then trickle down to poor and cure world hunger. ...

I dont know where to begin. Upon hearing the GPS tell us we were passing the largest covered wagon, both my traveling partner and I were most excited! "Is there Admission?" (No) "Is it far from 72?" (1.3 miles) "Then we HAVE to go!!!" Of course, we were excited! This was traveller history! Our first time seeing the worst Largest covered wagon. But what if I told you, it is indeed NOT a covered wagon, in that it is not a Wagon NOR Covered! We had very minimal expectations, but none were met.

1. It is a wooden statue of a Wagon, with abraham lincoln riding at the front WHILE reading a book. Is this the qualities we want to teach our children?!
2. No horses. What gives?! How does the statue/wagon move?
3. It doesn't move. Its a statue.
4. Lincoln is reading a book, WITH NO WORDS! Now I would understand if there were pictures, but the pages were completely blank! How are we supposed to believe he's reading at all?!
5. You CANNOT CLIMB THE WAGON STATUE: to me, now in a fit of disappointed rage, i found this most egregious. Even if you wanted a "nice photo op" you'd have to be a professional photographer to get the whole wagon in the image and not shoot people from below (which, psa: is a terrible angle for Everyone) If you have nothing to look forward to in life, then this may be the place for you.

I'm giving it 5 stars because it was free, and really, what...