- Age: 40
- Interview Date: 7/1/2008
- Interviewer: Mark R. DePue, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum
- Interview Length: 56 minutes Sit Down Interview, 41 minutes Walk and Talk Interview
- County: Morgan
- Jay Johnson was born in Springfield, Illinois in 1967 and grew up on a farm on tenant property in Waverly, Illinois. Jay's father started the Robert Johnson Grain Company where he hauled other farmer's corn to the Mississipi, until 1991 when Jay and his father got in the grain elevator business and in 2003 opened a train loading facility outside Waverly for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad.
