Petersburg, Illinois, highlights its deep connection to circus history. The town is hosting a Circus Days event June 19 and 20, and that led Scot Loyd with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum Oral History Project to do a little research.

Petersburg, in Menard County, became a major winter home for circus performers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

More info on the oral history project at presidentlincoln.illinois.gov/oral-history.