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Abraham Lincoln Memorial Monument

United States of America

Abraham Lincoln Memorial Monument

The Lincoln Monument is a bust of Abraham Lincoln by Robert Russin, 12+1⁄2 feet (3.8 m) high and resting on a 30-foot-tall (9.1 m) granite pedestal, at the Summit Rest Area on Interstate 80 east of Laramie, Wyoming. Russin originally erected the sculpture in 1959 nearby on Sherman Hill, overlooking

the old U.S. Highway 30 (Lincoln Highway). In 1969, after Interstate 80 was built, state officials moved the monument to become a centerpiece at the Summit Rest Area and Visitor Center between the cities of Cheyenne and Laramie. The construction of Lincoln's bust began more than a decade earlier and thousands of miles to the south of Sherman Hill and the Summit Rest Area. Russin decided when planning the sculpture that the wild temperature swings of the Wyoming plains would not provide the stable environment that he needed to craft the Lincoln sculpture. Instead, he turned to Fundicion Artística, S. A. in Mexico City. Russin built the 4,500-pound bronze bust in Mexico during a period of 11 months using some 10 tons of clay in a lost-wax process of casting. Russin cast Lincoln's monumental bust in more than 30 bronze pieces designed to be bolted together. He then shipped the sculpture from...

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