Transcontinental - East Hartford, CT - Abraham Lincoln on Waymarking.com

Sixteen abstract and traditional sculptures related to the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln are installed along the Lincoln Financial Sculpture Walk at Riverfront in Hartford and East Hartford. Lincoln Financial is an insurance company based in Philadelphia with offices in Hartford.

Lincoln was a forceful advocate for the construction of the transcontinental railroad. During his presidency he signed into law the Pacific Railway Acts in 1862 and 1863, which laid the legal groundwork for fulfilling this aspiration. This abstract sculpture by Carol Eisner consists of three curved sections of steel, suggestive of railroad tracks. The center piece forms an arch with a spiral piece below and a semi-oval above. The composition forms a open hemisphere about 6' in diameter.

A plaque, adjacent to the sculpture, is inscribed:

{Profile of Lincoln}
Lincoln
Financial
Sculpture
Walk at
Riverfront
{five wavy lines}

Transcontinental
Carol Eisner, 2005

"No other improvement that reason will
justify us in hoping for, can equal in utility
the railroad."

Early in his career as an Illinois state legislator, Lincoln
understood the great economic and military advantage a
transcontinental railroad would provide as well as the
sense of unity it would the burgeoning country.
he envisioned a time when the country would be linked
from coast to coast by a national railroad system.
Lincoln's presidential platform in 1860 included a
commitment to build a railroad to the Pacific and he
signed the Pacific Railway Acts in 1862 and 1863.
Unfortunately, the president never lived to see the
railroad completed, but his body was carried by train from
Washington, D.C. to Springfield, Ill. for burial in May
1865.