Carl Sandburg, poet and historian, was born in a modest three-room cottage on January 6, 1878. He was the son of a Swedish immigrant railroad worker. Carl attended Lombard College in Galesburg, and his first poetry was published in this town. He later became a journalist and prolific author, first gaining prominence in Chicago. His Complete Poems and a biography, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, won Pulitzer Prizes. He also wrote a novel, an autobiography, children's stories, and folksongs. After his death in 1967, his ashes were buried beneath remembrance rock behind his birthplace.