locally, Abraham began to form his opinions against slavery. After fourteen years in southern Indiana, in March 1830, Thomas Lincoln moved his family to Central Illinois. Making the memorial The site attracted little attention as a link to Lincoln's past until 1879, during a period of increased activity in the North and the South of memorializing following the American Civil War. When researchers located the grave of Nancy Hanks, Peter Evans Studebaker (of the South Bend, Indiana Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company) arranged for a headstone to be placed at the site. For decades, local groups tried to gain recognition for the site as one of historical importance. In 1917 they located the foundation of the cabin and officially marked it on April 28. In 1927 the Indiana Lincoln Union was formed to raise funds and encourage support for a memorial to recognize Lincoln's years in the Hoosier state. In 1932 the state established the adjacent Lincoln State Park to protect the area and preserve the historic homestead site. The state transferred part of that area to the memorial district, including the grave site of Nancy Lincoln (and what was found to be 29 other graves), now included in what is called Pioneer Cemetery. The Union continued to raise funds to make improvements to the site in the 1930s and 1940s, during the Great Depression and World War II. It completed construction of the Memorial building in 1944. It has five bas-relief panels portraying different periods of Lincoln's life, designed by sculptor Elmer Daniels. In the 1930s the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) helped mold much of the memorial's surrounding landscape, including an iconic grass alleyway leading from the memorial center to the pioneer cemetery. In 1934, a CCC crew located and excavated the original hearthstones of the Lincoln family farm. These workers also helped plant more than 22,000 native trees to restore that part of the county to something similar to the wilderness a young Abraham Lincoln would have seen when his family first came to Indiana. Today, high school students continue helping maintain and improve the national park through the Youth Conservation Corps. In 1962 the Indiana legislature approved donating another to the district and the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial was created. The U.S. Congress authorized the national memorial on February 19, 1962, placing it under the National Park Service. The memorial district was listed on the National Register of