WASHINGTON -- Exxon Mobil Corp. said it has donated $5 million to the Ford's Theatre Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Campaign, a $40 million dollar capital campaign to support a multi-year major renovation and expansion of the 144-year old Ford's Theatre in Washington.
ExxonMobil has supported artistic and educational programs at Ford's Theatre since 1978 to help honor and celebrate the legacy of Lincoln.
The $5 million contribution will be used to establish the ExxonMobil Lincoln Visitor Center, where future guests will begin their [image-nocss] experience at Ford's Theatre. As visitors enter the 5,000-square-foot center adjacent to the current theatre, they will be welcomed with a brief orientation video before touring the historic site. The Center will also house a gift shop, as well as other audience amenities and will serve as the lobby space for theatrical performances at Ford's Theatre.
Rex W. Tillerson, chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, Houston, and chairman of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Campaign. "We are pleased to be a part of the new campus which will provide a broader perspective of Lincoln's life and leadership, particularly during his time in Washington."
The ExxonMobil Lincoln Visitor Center will be part of the new Ford's Theatre campus, which will include a renovated theater with a new lobby, a redesigned museum, the Petersen House (where Lincoln died) and a new Center for Education & Leadership. The museum and new center will feature interactive self-guided exhibits that paint a picture of politics and society in Washington and the United States in the 1860s.
Through this transformation, Ford's Theatre will become a venue where school groups, families and tourists can come to study and be inspired by great lessons in leadership and American history illustrated by Lincoln's presidency. In addition, a website and offsite extension programming will allow Ford's Theatre to expand its reach into classrooms across the nation, and provide young people and adult learners alike with the opportunity to experience the life and legacy of Lincoln.
Separately, Dan Arnold, owner of the Road Ranger LLC chain of convenience stores, is behind an organization that has purchased 4 acres once owned by Lincoln, reported The Rockford Register Star.
In paperwork filed with the Illinois Secretary of State's office in September, Arnold is listed as a member of a new organization called Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Historical Farm. The land, near Lerna, Ill., was bought for $1.25 million earlier this month from Raymond Phipps, a Springfield, Ill., man whose family owned the property for more than a century.
I purchased the farm in order to use it to help charities, to promote the character virtues of Abraham Lincoln to future generations and to help promote tourism in the state of Illinois, Arnold told the newspaper.
The land is near the Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site, the 1840s home of the former president's father and stepmother. Lincoln later purchased the central Illinois property from his father.
Phipps once tried to sell square-inch parcels of the land, sparking a fierce legal battle.
Rockford, Ill.-based Road Ranger operates more than 60 c-stores and travel centers in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri and Wisconsin.
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