Obama’s library materials to travel from capital to Illinois
ASSOCIATED PRESS
This May 12, 2015 photo shows Jackson Park in Chicago. President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama have selected Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side to build President Barack Obama’s presidential library near the University of Chicago, where Obama once taught constitutional law.
HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. >>Some of the White House materials bound for President Barack Obama’s presidential library in Chicago will start making their way from Washington, D.C., to Illinois this week.
Beginning Wednesday, commercial trucks will carry documents, artifacts and gifts accumulated over Obama’s tenure to a temporary storage facility in Hoffman Estates, a northwest suburb of Chicago, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Air Force Lt. Col. Vianesa Vargas, the Air Force logistician overseeing the move, said over two dozen troops in Washington, D.C., will take materials now stored at the National Archives and Records Administration and load them onto semitrailers for the 700-mile trip.
“We don’t get to look in any of the boxes,” Vargas said. “We move the boxes. We move the crates. We fulfill the mission.”
According to Vargas about 40 sailors from Naval Station Great Lakes will unload the material in Hoffman Estates.
Naval Station Great Lakes, spokesman John Sheppard said its sailors are excited to help with the task.
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“It’s a pretty simple, little mission. It’s different,” said Sheppard. “Happy to do it.”
Vargas said the trucks are expected to make 24 trips between now and February.
Obama’s presidential library is expected to open in 2021 in the Jackson Park neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.
