Abraham Lincoln traveled through Tolono by locomotive at least eighteen times, passing time between train connections by playing horseshoes, visiting residents, and, while campaigning in Illinois, frequently playing chess with a telegrapher at the Marion House Hotel-Depot. Tolono, at the junction of the Great Western and Illinois Central Railroads, was the scene of a notable farewell on February 11, 1861, when Lincoln gave his last formal address in Illinois while traveling to Washington D. C., telling the crowd, “I am leaving you on an errand of national importance, attended as you are aware, with considerable difficulties. Let us believe, as some poet has expressed it, ‘Behind the cloud the sun is still shining.’ I bid you an affectionate farewell.” On that dreary, drizzly day, the station was crowded with people from across the area, some seeking shelter in a wooded park just west of the depot, and as his special presidential train arrived, cheers from thousands, the booming of a cannon, and waving handkerchiefs greeted him before he stepped onto the platform of his plush car to bid them farewell. Another remembered visit came on January 3, 1861, when young Adalaide Chaffee hurried to the Marion House Hotel-Depot to greet Lincoln as he waited for a connection to visit his stepmother near Charleston, and she recalled that he smiled, shook hands, and spoke most cordially.
