A crowd of 3000 gathered at the Lincoln Park in Indiana on Thursday for the unveiling of the new Lincoln penny from the US mint, in the memory of Lincoln’s years as Hoosier. The release was the second of the four pennies designed to mark the bicentennial anniversary of the great emancipator’s birth. The first of these four pennies shows Abraham Lincoln’s log cabin roots, and the second depicts Lincoln catching up on reading during a break from log cutting.

In Indiana, people waited in the quarter mile long queue with umbrellas braving the rain and the coin collectors created traffic jams in their bid to get to the release. People waited for over seven hours in the queue to get rolls of the coins which were old at face value to coin collectors at a maximum of six rolls each and many coins were distributed as souvenirs to young people in the crowd by Spencer County volunteers in the guise of pioneer women.

Lincoln had lived in Spencer County in an area about 30 miles northeast of Evansville in Indiana from ages 7 to 21. The release of the coin here was made as a mark of respect to his life and work in the state. According to the U.S. Mint Director Edmond C. Moy, 700 million of these pennies will be brought into circulation shortly. In his speech he said Lincoln “took the best of Indiana with him” to eventually have the “fortitude to lead the nation during its darkest hour.”