30 acres in Illinois once owned by Lincoln head to auction

CHARLESTON, Ill. (AP) — A 30-acre plot of farmland that Abraham Lincoln once owned in central Illinois is heading to auction.

Retired Charleston farmer Ron Best is selling his family's 590-acre farm, which includes the Cole County acreage once owned by the 16th president.

Best tells the (Charleston) Times-Courier and Mattoon Journal-Gazette that he knows some people at Tuesday's auction at a Charleston hotel might think of the land's historical significance.

But he says it's been farmed the entire time, and "It's not like Lincoln's stove pipe hat that you can put on a shelf and say this was Lincoln's."

Lincoln bought 40 acres in 1841 from his cash-strapped father, Thomas Lincoln.