Abraham Lincoln’s stop in Clyde on his way to presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C. in 1861 was commemorated 150 years later Feb. 18 as about 200 people turned out to watch a reenactment.
Although the original event lasted only about five minutes, while the train paused to take on wood and water and Lincoln stuck his head out to bid the crowd a simple “good day and farewell,” it has lived on as a well-documented piece of community history.
It is also part of the intrigue surrounding Lincoln’s harrowing trip from Illinois, in which an assassination attempt was thwarted by scouts traveling ahead of the train who discovered debris on the track.