Historic Significance
Washington Square is of special historic significance because it hosted the first of the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates. The debates lasted three hours under the hot August sun and focused on the issues of popular sovereignty and slavery which set the tone for the other debates to come in 1858. Because of its historic significance as the location of the first Lincoln-Douglas debate, the integrity of its contributing properties, and significance to local life, the Washington Park Historic District was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on April 11, 1973.
Read more about this topic: Washington Park Historic District (Ottawa, Illinois)
Famous quotes containing the words historic and/or significance:
“If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)