When it was established in 1963, the Lincoln Heritage Trail was intended to link historic sites across three states. Today, only remnants remain, a relic of a not-so-distant era of travel.

At its peak, the Trail was a 960-mile winding path through Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, the three states that Abraham Lincoln called home in his pre-presidential years.

Brown-and-gray roadside signs that depicted Lincoln’s head and resembled a coin dotted the landscape, through both rural and urban areas. Main and alternate routes of the trail led motorists, at least in theory, to historic sites relating to Lincoln’s life.

The origins of the Trail stretch back to 1915, when the Illinois General Assembly requested the Illinois State Historical Library to mark the routes that Lincoln had traveled fr

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