HISTORIC PRESERVATION AND INTERPRETATION IN THE SHADOW OF TWO UNITED STATES ICONS:

internationally visited historic spirits of place: Historic Route 66 Highway and Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War president. Both Lincoln and Route 66 are associated with significant historic places and new museums here. Each year an International Route 66 festival is held, a new Lincoln museum is visited by half-a-million visitors a year, and 2009 will see a major bicentennial celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. Yet what are the relationships between spirit of space, commemoration, and tangible authenticity? While tourism grows on the historic highway, the small motels of Route 66 are being demolished and were named an “11 Most Endangered Historic Site” by the National Trust in 2007. Meanwhile, with oncoming bicentennial celebrations, Lincoln-oriented historic sites and places are undergoing major changes. Contrasts and similarities with how two historic spirits of place are being commemorated, interpreted, reinterpreted, appropriated, and recontexturalized is the subject of this paper. The original premise of this paper was that the heritage interpretations of two different United States icons, Route 66 and Abraham Lincoln, have created important yet dissimilar “spirits of place ” in Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln sites are fixed in time and space while Route 66 is a linear highway with dynamic use and is movement oriented. Route 66 interpretation is celebratory in nature while Lincoln’s spirit of place is one of commemoration and memorialization. Lincoln sites strive for historical accuracy while Route 66 site priorities are sometimes outside of normative restoration traditions. However, as the author looked at contrasts of commemoration and recontexturalization of these spirits of place, equally profound and sometimes surprising similarities became apparent