Features of ORC
Entrance Sign
Located along North Grand Avenue at Monument Avenue, the sign directs visitors to the main entrance of Oak Ridge Cemetery as well as to the Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site, and the Springfield and Central Illinois African American History Museum just outside the cemetery gates. The Illinois war memorials also can be accessed through this entrance, as well as from Walnut Street on the cemetery’s west side.
Oak Ridge Cemetery Office
The cemetery office is at 1441 Monument Avenue, just outside the cemetery entrance. It is the headquarters for activity of the 180-acre cemetery. Here, the public can inquire about cemetery plots and services and can get assistance in locating grave sites. The building is staffed Monday through Friday.
Monument Avenue Entrance
This overhead archway and gates make up the primary entrance to Oak Ridge Cemetery. Through it, visitors can find their way to the Lincoln Tomb and 180 acres of rolling ground, ancient trees, landmark features, and the tombs of famous and fascinating individuals. The original archway was constructed in 1900, when the entrance was moved from the cemetery’s east side to this south-side location. The steel archway is a facsimile of the original, scaled to allow modern vehicles and buses to pass.
Oak Ridge Abbey
Just inside the Monument Avenue entrance on the left (west) side stands the imposing Oak Ridge Abbey, a mausoleum built between 1910 and 1912. Its interior is lined with white marble highlighted with stained glass. The Abbey’s developers were on the cusp of a mausoleum movement that promised that loved ones could be interred without the vulgarity of being placed in the ground. Toxic fumes would not be created, disease would not spread, and bodies would desiccate instead of decomposing in the earth. Financial problems eventually led the cemetery to take ownership of the Abbey. Today nearly all the 1,000-plus crypts are taken.
Oak Ridge Cemetery Memorial Chapel
To the right (east) of the entrance is a chapel completed in 1974. In addition to interment spaces, it includes a gathering area. The front exterior wall also incorporates columbarium units.
Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site
The elegant Lincoln Tomb, the final resting place of President Abraham Lincoln, his wife, and three of their children, rises above all else in Oak Ridge Cemetery. Designed by sculptor Larkin Mead, it was completed in 1874 at a cost of $180,000. On the outside of the 117-foot-tall obelisk, bronze statues representing the four branches of the Civil War military are positioned around the upper terrace. In front of the entrance to the tomb is a great bust of Lincoln, a reproduction of one sculpted by Gutzon Borglum that sits in the crypt of the U.S. Capitol.
Inside the tomb, visitors first encounter a small prototype of the sitting Lincoln that Daniel Chester French created for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. A walkway lined by other classic statuary and plaques leads visitors to the Lincoln burial chamber.
Civil War reenactors from the 114th Illinois Volunteer Infantry (Reactivated) conduct flag ceremonies outside the tomb on Tuesday evenings in June, July, and August. At the culmination of each ceremony, the name of one visitor is drawn to receive the American flag that has flown in front of the tomb that week. Other events are held from time to time.
As its name suggests, the Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site is administered by the state of Illinois, not Oak Ridge Cemetery. The state also owns the property surrounding the tomb
Public Holding Vault
Nestled into the hillside north of the tomb is the cemetery’s original holding vault, which was built in the 1860s to hold bodies until they could be buried. The remains of President Lincoln and his son Willie, who had died in while the family was in Washington, D.C., were held in this vault from May 4 until December 21, 1865. They were then transferred to a new vault built specifically for the martyred president and his family. The body of another son, Eddie, who had died at age 3 in 1850, when the Lincolns still lived in Springfield, was also moved from another local cemetery to the new vault.
The three Lincolns were moved into the monumental Lincoln Tomb, still under construction, on Sept. 19, 1871. The Lincoln holding vault was then demolished. The topography around the Lincoln Tomb has since been resculpted, but a small stone on the slope northeast of the tomb indicates the general area where the Lincoln holding vault was located.
Original Cemetery Entrance
Oak Ridge Cemetery began as a 17-acre site that extended from east to west along Spring Creek. The first entrance, which had a wooden archway and fence, was off Third Street on the cemetery’s east side. The current Third Street archway is a replica constructed in 2015. It was used for the 150th anniversary reenactment that year of President Lincoln’s funeral; the funeral procession entered the cemetery through the reproduction entrance.
Note: The reproduction archway, gates, fence, and carriageway were built largely by local and regional contractors donating their time, equipment and materials, a testament to their dedication to Oak Ridge Cemetery and the Lincoln legacy
The Bell Tower
Located within the original 17-acre cemetery, the bell in the stone Bell Tower chimes regularly throughout the day. When the tower was built in the 1890s, an office and chapel were attached to it. Those sections were dismantled in the late 1940s, and the stone was used to expand the gatekeeper’s office, creating the current cemetery office.
A stone panel on the west side of the tower once was the base on which Abraham Lincoln’s casket sat while in the holding vault. The slab was engraved in memory of President Lincoln and installed in the Bell Tower in 1900. Years of weathering rendered the stone unreadable, however, so a bronze plaque was attached to the tower displaying the original text.
Historic Steel Arch
The arch is a remnant of an earlier design of the original Third Street entrance. A concrete wall and raised steps were formed along the Third Street frontage as a barrier to flooding through the cemetery valley, and the arch was mounted over the raised steps. The steps and arch were removed in 2014, when the reproduction entrance was being constructed. Now mounted on stone columns in front of the Bell Tower, the arch depicts an earlier time in the evolution of the cemetery.
Home for the Friendless Monument
In 1863, two years into the Civil War, citizens of Springfield raised funds to construct a home to care for orphans and indigent women. An estimated 6,500 children passed through the Home for the Friendless from 1863 until it closed in 1928; at least 643 of those children died at the home prior to 1904. Those children and a few adults are buried near the Home for the Friendless Monument. Their names, when known, are listed on bronze plaques mounted on the wall.
Grand Army of the Republic Mound
This parcel was set aside for burial of Union Army veterans of the Civil War who did not have plots available elsewhere. The cannon mounted nose down in the center of the mound symbolizes the end of the war; the mound of cannonballs contributes to the visual effect. More than 90 veterans are buried here. A nearby plaque lists their names, rank and life dates
