Living
Lincoln exhibit draws record attendance at Bell County Museum
Thursday, 31 January 2013 by Berneta Peeples
The Lincoln exhibit at the Bell County Museum Saturday drew the largest attendance for a single exhibit in museum history, according to Stephanie Turnham, museum director.
Guest registration for the exhibit, on the first floor of the museum staged in the north exhibit hall that in another life was a garage, was around 400.
For the program in the second floor auditorium that in the 1930s was home to the Belton Little Theater, attendance reached standing room and seating around the edge of the stage.
Talmage Boston, Dallas lawyer, and Mark Updegrove, director of the LBJ Library and Museum in Austin, gave little known and interesting facts about the 16th president of the United States.
Boston stressed that Lincoln was "able to accomplish so much for the nation was because he practiced law for so many years and was such a logical thinker."
He emphasized the hardships of Lincoln's early life. Lincoln's father was a sharecropper farmer and carpenter who could barely write his name, and who cared little for his son Abe's desire to rise above his poverty up bringing.
Lincoln tried 1,000 trials to jury, almost one per week. The speaker called Lincoln "a pure lawyer with no other business or investment activities."
Miller compared Lincoln to presidents he has Known and compared Lincoln to Texas' own LBJ. He cited similarities in leadership and the ability to get things done by President Lyndon B. Johnson and President Abraham Lincoln.
The Lincoln exhibit will remain open for several months. Feb. 9 the museum will have a children's special event - an Abraham Lincoln Birthday Party.
Details will be announced, Museum Director Turnham said.
