Abraham Lincoln is pictured at age 30 when he worked as a lawyer and Illinois state legislator along with Naperville founder Joseph Naper. In 1839, Naper pushed to create DuPage County out of nine townships in Cook County, and Lincoln voted against his own party to help make that happen.

Three years earlier, Naper had voted to support Lincoln’s initiative to move the state capitol from Vandalia to Springfield. The life-size sculpture shows young Lincoln as a jovial storyteller perched in the late Wehrli’s beloved Central Park.