Cook's Hall

When it opened in 1858, Cook's Hall became the largest of Springfield's public halls, with a gas-lighted auditorium and gallery regarded as the grandest in the region. Wealthy soap and candle manufacturer John Cook built it after a devastating fire destroyed a large portion of the block, and although he named it Illiopolitan Hall, townspeople called it Cook's Hall. In April 1860, amid presidential politics, Abraham Lincoln delivered his lecture "Discoveries and Inventions" there for the final time. The hall stood within a broader culture of public entertainments that included political and religious gatherings as well as fairs, militia drills, parades, circuses, dances, dinner parties, concerts, plays, and lectures, reflecting the shift from outdoor events to spacious indoor meeting places as villages became more citified. One of several public halls in the capital city from the mid-1830s to the Civil War, it opened with a vocal recital in December 1858 and over the next two years hosted visiting theatrical troupes, military drill teams, musical ensembles, magicians, scientists, authors, poets, artists, world travelers, and lecturers including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher, and Theodore Parker. In the spring of 1860, Lola Montez, dancer, actress, and former mistress of the King of Bavaria, drew a packed audience and stirred disapproval with her lecture on "Fashion." American heavyweight champion John C. Heenan reportedly visited presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln in October 1860, with Republican newspapers calling Heenan a warm admirer of Lincoln and Democratic newspapers replying that only the lower classes followed boxing. Heenan gave an exhibition match there the following December to a sold-out house, and because boxing was then a bare-knuckled sport, both he and his opponent left for Saint Louis afterward to recover from their injuries. Whether Lincoln or his sons attended is unknown.

Springfield, Illinois · United States