4. Joshua Wagenseller House
Site Coordinates: N 40˚ 34.0285' W 089˚ 39.2360'
This is one of 10 caches (a hidden container) placed around historic sites in Pekin. These sites along with 10 other sites will provide letters or numbers you'll need to ultimately unscramble a prominent name and year in Pekin's history. Once you've obtained all 20 letters and numbers and unscrambled the name and year, submit your answer to be entered into a drawing for a locally 3-D printed "flat" Everett, $50 in Chamber Checks and other Pekin swag!
Please be courteous and aware of your surroundings (do not disrupt landscaping or destroy anything during your search) and place each cache back how you found it to ensure it remains hidden. All caches are on public property, placed with permission. Please be stealthy & courteous!
Practice CITO (cache-in-trash-out: a way to help keep our environment clean) & happy caching! We hope you enjoy this historic tour of Pekin & participate in other events throughout 2024 to celebrate this milestone.
A special thank you to the United Way of Pekin for sponsoring the cache containers.
If you have any questions, please email us at pekinhistoricadventurequest@gmail.com.
A Bit of History...
Joshua Wagenseller's House
Joshua Wagenseller, a prominent Pekin merchant, was a leading member of the local Whig Party (later a Republican) and a good friend of Abraham Lincoln, who several times visited or stayed at the grand and beautiful Wagenseller house during his visits to Pekin. Lincoln is reported to have given at least one speech from the front porch of the Wagenseller house, which was located at a spot that is now the southwest intersection of Second Street and Broadway. Lincoln and William Kellogg, then a U.S. Congressman, visited Joshua Wagenseller's home on 5 Oct. 1858 during the period of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Lincoln and Kellogg then gave speeches at the courthouse square -- Lincoln in the afternoon (introduced by Judge Bush), Kellogg in the evening.
Wagenseller, whose dry goods store was located at 48 Court Street, built his house in 1856. This point of interest's associated images include an old photograph of the Wagenseller house (including some of Joshua Wagenseller's grandchildren), and a detail from an 1877 aerial depiction of Pekin showing the Wagenseller house at the corner of Broadway and "Market Street" (now South Second Street).
