Tazewell House

City: Pekin

County: Tazewell

State: Illinois

The Tazewell House was a hotel in Pekin, Illinois, located near the Illinois River on a hill at the northwest corner of Court and Front streets. It was the town's primary hotel and, due to its proximity to the local courthouse, was a gathering place for Judge David Davis as well as lawyers attending court in the Eighth Judicial Circuit. Abraham Lincoln sometimes stayed there while traveling on legal business and received a tutorial on the telegraph from the hotel's telegraph operator, Charles A. Tinker, in March 1857.

Guy C. Fraker, Looking for Lincoln in Illinois: A Guide to Lincoln's Eighth Judicial Circuit (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2017), 21; Guy C. Fraker, Lincoln's Ladder to the Presidency: The Eighth Judicial Circuit (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 2012), 73; David Homer Bates, Lincoln in the Telegraph Office (New York: Century, 1907), 4-5.