Vachel Lindsay Home

Now Open. Reservations required for your visit. Book your reservation on the website.

Nicholas Vachel Lindsay is considered a founder of modern singing poetry, as he referred to it, in which verses are meant to be sung or chanted. Vachel Lindsay became famous in the early 20th century as a traveling bard whose dramatic delivery of public readings helped keep appreciation for poetry as a spoken art alive in the American Midwest. Now you can visit his home in Springfield, IL.

The house was built in the late 1840s; one of the first owners of the home was C.M. Smith, whose wife, Ann, was the sister of Mary Todd Lincoln. Both Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln were frequent visitors. The house was purchased in 1878 by Lindsay's parents and remained in the Lindsay family for 80 years.