Abraham Lincoln

This bronze replica of Daniel Chester French’s Abraham Lincoln, America’s greatest public sculpture is one of only six still in existence. This model was one of ten cast from the original working model used to create the world-famous statue of President Lincoln that is incorporated into the Lincoln Memorial on the The Mall in Washington, D.C.

Benjamin Kulp, a financier and philanthropist, presented the statue to the City of Hot Springs for display in its Convention Auditorium in 1968. Kulp, a native of Chicago, maintained homes in Illinois and Hot Springs for over forty years. As an orphan boy making his own way in Chicago he found inspiration in the life of Abraham Lincoln and used his ideals as guiding lights in his own life. The statue had been a part of his art collection at his Hot Springs residence Maurice Estates that was located on Malvern Avenue.

Kulp acquired the priceless statue through a longtime friendship with Mrs. Margaret French Creeson, daughter of the late sculpture who created this statue and the one in the Lincoln Memorial. It was his intent that the City display the statue in the lobby of the then Convention Auditorium and that it be dedicated to the memory of the late Devere Dierks, Jr., a former member of the Auditorium Commission.