When I breezed through Ottawa, Illinois four years ago, I knew I'd come back; I just didn't know when. That "when" part came in Labor Day Weekend (September 2022), en route to Iowa. It was better than I remembered. Important and interesting to me, first and foremost, for the fact that the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, spent a considerable chunk of time in Ottawa as a traveling lawyer, trying court cases in the Illinois Supreme Court throughout the 1840s and '50s. Ottawa is also the site of the first of 7 LincolnDouglas Debates, kicking the tour off in Ottawa's Washington Square on August 21, 1858. Lincoln, the "Railsplitter" went up against the "Little Giant", Stephen Douglas for a U.S. Senate seat. Douglas won the seat, but it was Lincoln who would bask in the glow of a much bigger prize as America's first Republican President two years later. Beyond all that, Ottawa is a flatout amazing small town, rich with history, beauty and preservation; Ottawa's downtown district is listed on the National Register of Historic Places...and the more recent renovations in Ottawa have this town sparkling! Thanks for your support of the #HistoryMysteryMan! #OttawaIllinois #AbrahamLincoln #Lawyers #LookingForLincoln #Illinois #Ottawa #GasPump #History