L.L Bean has partnered with the National Park Foundation to help you find your happy place.

And with more than 400 national parks, there's a good chance you'll find one close to home.

Discover your perfect day in a park at find your park.com. For more than a hundred years, no national memorial had been contemplated for any president except George Washington.

Yet talk of building one to honor the monumental legacy left by Abraham Lincoln began even as he

lingered on his deathbed.

There was an obvious appropriateness to the concept that Lincoln, the preserver of the Union, should join Washington, the founder of that Union,

and being honored on the National Mall.

I'm Jason Epperson, and on this episode of America's National Parks, the Lincoln Memorial,

part of the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C. So, In 1867, Congress passed the first of many bills establishing a commission to erect a monument for the 16th President.

Sculptor Clark Mills was chosen to design the monument.

His plans called for a 70-foot structure adorned with six equestrian and 31 massive pedestrian statues, crowned

by a 12-foot statue of Lincoln.

The project couldn't raise enough funds, and the plans went by the wayside until the start of the 20th century,

when six separate bills were introduced into Congress for the incorporation of a new Memorial

Commission.

The first five were met with defeat. Remember the country was still

deeply wounded from the Civil War and Lincoln to many was still derided.

Nor was it American nature to deify presidents at the time.

The sixth bill introduced on December 13, 1910 passed.

The Lincoln Memorial Commission had its first meeting the following year, led by President Taft.

By 1913, Congress had approved of the Commission's choice of design and location.

Architect Henry Bacon was chosen to design the memorial. design and

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