Beardstown

History

Beardstown was first settled by Thomas Beard in 1819; he erected a log cabin at the edge of the Illinois River, from which he traded with the local Native Americans and ran a ferry. The town was laid out in 1827 and was incorporated as a city in 1896. During the Black Hawk War in 1832, it was a base of supplies for the Illinois troops. Thomas Beard's son, Edward "Red" Beard, a noted gambler and saloon keeper of the Old West, was killed in a gunfight in Kansas in 1873 by "Rowdy Joe" Lowe. Earlier, he had built a two-story brick building which was used for 85 years as a store and inn. This inn is alleged to have sheltered Abraham Lincoln on his visits to Beardstown, but that is legend and unconfirmed. The building was demolished and replaced by a post office. William Henry Herndon, Lincoln's Springfield law partner, claimed that Lincoln contracted syphilis from a prostitute in Beardstown, an incident author Gore Vidal colorfully recounts in his historical novel Lincoln (1984). The Beardstown Courthouse was the site of a famous trial which helped build Abraham Lincoln's reputation as a lawyer after he used a copy of a farmer's almanac to undermine the credibility of the prosecution's key witness. The scene was later depicted in a painting by Norman Rockwell. A Lincoln Museum is on the second floor of the courthouse along with many Native American relics.

Geography

Beardstown is located on the Illinois River. According to the 2021 census gazetteer files, Beardstown has a total area of , of which (or 99.21%) is land and (or 0.79%) is water.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  596
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  541
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  523
• Red-winged Blackbird

  Agelaius phoeniceus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  468
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  466
• Red-bellied Woodpecker

  Melanerpes carolinus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  400
• Turkey Vulture

  Cathartes aura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  398
• Killdeer

  Charadrius vociferus Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  376