Founded in 1936 as a living memorial to President Abraham Lincoln, the Lincoln Memorial Garden in Springfield was designed by one of the world’s foremost landscape architects, Jens Jensen. The Garden, which has been expanded to 100 acres from its original 63 acres, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. It now includes the original garden, the Walnut Grove, small tracts east and south of the original Garden and the 29-acre Ostermeier Prairie Center. The Garden Clubs of Illinois support the Garden with material, money and volunteers.

Jensen designed the Garden to showcase plants native to Lincoln’s states of Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. The original site consisted mainly of farm fields and a few sparsely wooded streams. Jensen’s plan featured a series of interconnected paths bordered by varied arrangements of native plants. Today, the Garden includes oak, hickory and maple groves, open meadows and groupings of small flowering trees and shrubs that form borders between the meadows and woods. Eight council rings - gathering places with circular stone benches - cement the patterns of the lanes.