Oak Ridge Cemetery (Images of America)

Springfield's historic Oak Ridge Cemetery is accounted second only to Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., as the most visited cemetery in the United States. The burial place of Abraham Lincoln, Oak Ridge's dramatically landscaped grounds are an important contribution to American landscape architecture. A portrait of Victorian sentimentalizing of death, Oak Ridge provides a sublime backdrop for contemplating life. Unlike grim churchyards and bleak graveyards, rural cemeteries are places of great beauty for the living who continue to use them for walking, riding, and quiet reflection. But Oak Ridge's peacefulness has occasionally been disturbed, as in 1876 when gunfire rang out while secret service agents attempted to catch grave robbers who had broken into the Lincoln Tomb.