Abraham Lincoln arrived on Courthouse Square after traveling by train from Mattoon and by buggy from the Hillsboro station, stretching after the long trip and greeting his longtime friends Joe and Jane Eccles. His satchel and umbrella recall a September day in 1858 when he came to Hillsboro as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, after his opponent Judge Stephen A. Douglas had appeared at a rally there a month earlier. In torrents of rain, Lincoln addressed an enthusiastic crowd of supporters inside a circus tent at the Hillsboro fairgrounds. Throughout his public life, even in troubled times, he sought music, theater, and other entertainments to lift his spirit, and in Hillsboro he faces the plaza stage, a site for concerts, coronations, plays, pep rallies, and other community events.