Huge Mural Remembers Lincoln's 'Lost Speech'

By Ed Epstein

Washington, D.C.

Wednesday, May 28, 2025

For a speech that was supposedly lost to history because no one wrote it down as Abraham Lincoln delivered it, the future president's May 29, 1856, talk about the evils of slavery is drawing new recognition.

The building in downtown Bloomington, Illinois, where Lincoln delivered the speech at the founding meeting of the Illinois Republican Party is gone. It's now a parking garage. But across the street is a three-story building that houses Rosie's Pub. On one side of that building, local artist Troy Freeman of Free Sky Studios has created a huge mural that will be dedicated tomorrow afternoon.

The dedication event will take place nearby, at the McLean County Museum of History, according to the Looking for Lincoln website. "The McLean County Museum of History will celebrate and dedicate the Lincoln's Lost Speech Mural in downtown Bloomington on the east steps of the museum on Thursday, May 29, at 5:25 p.m. The museum is located at 200 North Main.

Rosie's Pub is at 106 E. Front St. in Bloomington.

Lincoln's speech, which closed the party meeting, has taken on mythic proportions. Many say that reporters or others who would usually write down speeches verbatim were so taken with Lincoln's emotional appeal against slavery that they put down their quill pens and simply listened. So, no text appeared in newspapers of the day.

Even so, those in attendance apparently were impressed. The speech helped launch Lincoln's 1858 campaign as the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate against the powerful Democratic incumbent, Stephen Douglas. The 1858 campaign featured the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates, which, in turn, helped launch Lincoln to winning the 1860 Republican presidential nomination.

The new mural joins other Lincoln-related sites in Bloomington, where Lincoln spent lots of time as a circuit-riding lawyer in the 1840s and 1850s. These include the home of Lincoln friend Jesse Fell, where the future president's allies frequently met to plan strategy, and the grand 36-room mansion home of Judge David Davis, who masterminded Lincoln's nomination in 1860 and later was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by Lincoln.

Looking for Lincoln has a page listing Lincoln-related sites in the Bloomington-Normal twin cities that can be accessed at https://www.visitbn.org/visit/looking-for-lincoln/.

Photo courtesy of Looking for Lincoln.