SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Bluegrass and acoustic musicians and fans from throughout the Midwest will converge this week at a central Illinois state park on land that a young Abraham Lincoln called home for six years.

The 26th annual Traditional Music and Bluegrass Festival will be held at Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site near Petersburg, Ill., on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The park is 20 miles northwest of Springfield, the Illinois state capital, and two miles south of Petersburg on state Route 97.

The festival is free and open to the public.

New Salem is a recreated log-cabin village along the Sangamon River, where Abe Lincoln lived and worked during young adulthood. Throughout the daytime hours at the the weekend festival, the footpath winding through the village is crammed cabin-to-cabin with traditional, folk and bluegrass musicians engaged in jam sessions.

On both Friday and Saturday evenings, several regional bluegrass bands will perform free concerts on an outdoor amphitheater stage inside the park. The shows, with free admission, run from 6:30 to 10 p.m. both evenings. Concessions are open during the concerts. Daytime hours for the festival in the log-cabin village are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

In addition to the music, a large clogging platform will be set up outside the village for traditional dance performances that start at noon on Sunday.

Throughout the weekend, the log buildings in the village will be open and staffed by costumed volunteers who will interpret lifestyles of the 1830s. The New Salem Museum Shop and the New Salem Lincoln League Souvenir and Book Store will both be open during the event.

The music festival is sponsored by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, which administers Lincoln’s New Salem, and the New Salem Lincoln League.