Lincoln High School’s Lost Mural

A photo from 2001 of Lincoln High School’s auditorium. The recreated mural is on full display above the stage.

Walking into Lincoln High School’s historic auditorium, your eyes are met with the large mural that lays high above the stage. At first glance it appears to be just another mural that recalls the legacy of President Abraham Lincoln. However, upon further investigation the mural is subject to a mystery. 

The history of the existing mural is one that is quite a story. Starting in 1923, the men who planned and built Lincoln High School dreamed of installing a large mural to go above the stage in the auditorium. The space in which the mural was intended to go, was 8 by 35 feet, which is quite large for a hand painted mural. That would make the cost of the mural to be astronomical.

It took eleven years for the dream of a mural to start becoming true. During the Great Depression, oddly enough, the federal government paid people, such as artists to continue in their work. Despite widespread unemployment and financial hardships, artists work continued. So, Lincoln High School enlisted the talents of Manitowoc born artist, Merlin Pollock.

Pollock was approved for complete the mural by the federal government in January of 1933. In just nine short months he finished the mural. Just as the mural appears today, the theme of a newborn unity between the North and South was portrayed by the inscription on the upper part of the mural. The inscription reads “so as to make a union of hearts and hands as well as states.” This phrase was taken from a letter that President Lincoln wrote just hours before his assassination on April 14th, 1865.

The mural stood in its original home until 1954, when the auditorium was remodeled. After concluding that the mural could be taken down, saved, and rehung, it was taken down. It was then packed, and safely put away. That was the last time anyone saw the mural. What happened to the mural? Where did it go? Nobody knows. In an article written in May of 1973 it talks about how administrators in the building had been trying to locate the mural but had no luck. To this day it is still a mystery as to whether the mural was destroyed, stolen, or simply hidden so expertly.

Now you may be asking yourself, if the mural in Lincoln’s auditorium is not original, then where did this one come from? In 2001, Chicago artist Tom Melvin and his associates were commissioned to recreate the missing mural. They did so by using black and white photos that depicted the mural and they also researched into Pollock’s commonly used style and color palette. Both strategies helped Melvin and his team recreate the missing mural.

To this day it is unknown where the original Pollock mural is, or what happened to it. Maybe one day the mystery will finally be solved.