Seeking a way to memorialize their fallen son, the Watchorns eventually settled on the concept of building the Lincoln Memorial
Shrine in their winter home of Redlands. That vision became reality in 1932, when the one-room octagonal building opened. In 1937, fountains and limestone walls bearing Lincoln quotations were added to the octagon. Over the following decades, an ever-increasing
wealth of acquisitions required additional space. Thanks to the generosity of Lincoln and Civil War enthusiasts throughout Southern
California, more than one million dollars was raised and in 1998, two beautiful wings were added to the original octagon.
It
is a unique facility – the only such museum and archive west of the Mississippi River dedicated solely to the study of Abraham Lincoln
and the American Civil War. By placing the Shrine in his adopted home of Redlands, Watchorn knew this monument of ideals would be
available to the increasing number of people moving into Southern California. It was “accessible yet secluded,” he said.
Robert Watchorn desired that his Lincoln Memorial Shrine serve as a place where visitors would be inspired by the life and accomplishments
of the man judged by many to be the greatest of all Americans. It is an institution that caters to visitors ranging from the
average elementary school student to the nationally recognized historian. The great Lincoln scholar Jay Monaghan said, upon
his visit to the Shrine in 1940, that “Lincoln is all things to all men.” Each of us approaches the memory of Lincoln in our own singular
way. Lincoln is the “common property of each individual,” another biographer wrote. For the community of Redlands and for the greater
region of Southern California, that “property” is a gift from Robert Watchorn.