World's 2nd Largest Seated Lincoln

Prestonsburg, Kentucky

There was a time when you couldn't drive anywhere in eastern Kentucky without seeing billboards with the grinning face of Eric C. Conn, "Mr. Social Security."

Conn, by his own reckoning, was one of the top Social Security disability lawyers in the country. He commissioned a self-promotional music video to convince the Obama administration to appoint him to its Social Security Advisory Board (it didn't work). He made a huge inflatable version of himself for the Kentucky State Fair, then moved it atop a trailer on the lawn of his law office in tiny Stanville, Kentucky.

A man with such zest for marketing may never have had entirely pure intentions -- but he did give Kentucky the second largest seated Lincoln statue in the world.

Conn reportedly paid more than a half-million dollars to have the statue built in China. It was not placed in some busy tourist-visited Kentucky city, but in the parking lot of Eric C. Conn's law office in Stanville. It was unveiled on November 4, 2010, which Conn said was the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's election to the Presidency.

Why Lincoln? Well, he was a lawyer, just like Eric C. Conn. And Lincoln was from Kentucky, which Conn felt had been short-changed when it came to Lincoln landmarks. "And he really liked statues," said Jamie Slone, his PR director.

According to Jamie, the statue weighed over a ton, not counting its cement base that was 16 feet square and six feet high. The Lincoln statue was meant to be a permanent addition to Stanville, with its own lightning rods, 24 hour illumination, and surveillance cameras. It was proportioned to be just smaller than the seated Lincoln in Washington, DC, out of respect for The Great Emancipator (Conn could have made it bigger). "He wanted to give Kentucky something to be proud of," said Jamie of her boss.

The parking lot is now empty and the law office is gone. Eric C. Conn was convicted of massive Social Security fraud, sentenced to 12 years in a state prison, skipped bail and fled the country, was captured, hauled back, and thrown into a federal penitentiary for an additional 20 years.

Honest Abe was sold to help pay off the corrupt lawer's multi-million-dollar debt, and in April 2021 the statue was moved to nearby Prestonsburg, where Lincoln now overlooks a Civil War battlefield.