Referred to as ‘The Groves Memorial’ in the 1913 yearbook, the statue was unveiled to students on Wednesday, April 9, 1913. Two days later, the brand new Lincoln High School on Des Moines Street was “thronged with townspeople” for a public open house, the yearbook reported.

A gift from Alexander Groves, the statue was in memory of his son, Harry Groves, a member of the Class of 1895. (Groves family descendants still farm in Hamilton County.) As reported in the yearbook, and supported later by local historian Ed Nass, the statue first stood on a green marble base in the third floor auditorium, which in much later years became the Junior High band room.

Eventually, the statue was moved outside along Des Moines Street and placed on a large granite base. The original marble base was repurposed to hold a Dragoons Trail marker on the grounds of Kendall Young Library. In the late 1960s or early 1970s, the Lincoln statue was moved to the east side of the “new” high school on Lynx Avenue. The Lincoln Building would remain in use by students for a few more decades before being bought down.

Old Abe has weathered more than a century of spring rains and winter snows. He has patiently endured the occasional festooning of toilet paper each Homecoming.

Freeman-Journal photo by Lori Berglund
A bit of blackened address, a very famous portion of Lincoln’s second inaugural speech, can still be read in the statue’s left hand.

The bronze Lincoln stands 7 feet, 4 inches high. It has weathered to a soft green patina, which serves to protect it. Had it remained inside, it would likely still be bronze in color.

The artist, George Ganiere of Chicago, created a similar work for Burlington, Wis., but the Wisconsin statue lacks a defining and very meaningful aspect of the local Lincoln. In his left hand, Lincoln holds a portion of his Second Inaugural Address. Although a bit blackened with time, it is still easy to read: “With malice toward none, with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”