HODGENVILLE, Ky.—Unlike the now metropolitan state capitol of Springfield, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln spent 24 pre-presidency years working, raising his family, and establishing a political career, his birth and early childhood homes are far from any beaten path. To find Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Park in pastoral southeastern Kentucky, a visitor must plan ahead. A visit entails driving southwest of Hodgenville, Kentucky. It’s then another 10 miles northeast through open pasturelands and small farms to Knob Creek Farm Lincoln Boyhood Home.
However, anyone visiting Louisville, Lexington, or Evansville, Kentucky, or who have Mammoth Cave National Park on their travel bucket list, should consider the two historic parks must-see places. The drive from one of these starting points takes anywhere from an hour to just over two hours. Yet, not seeing where the 16th president began his humble life is missing on a significant history locale.
Old Abe’s Humble Origins
Lincoln’s birthplace, known as Sinking Springs Farm, is named for a spring emerging from a cave. It’s a manicured setting with rolling lawns, walkways, an educational visitors center, and a centerpiece: a massive Corinthian-column structure protecting a reproduction of the Lincoln family’s original one-room cabin. In total, the park encompasses 116.5 acres.Visitors can walk up the 56-step staircase—the number representing Lincoln’s age at death—to the marble and granite memorial and view the exterior and interior of a rough log-and-chinking home. Here, Lincoln began his “most humble walks of life,” as he wrote in his first political announcement in New Salem, Illinois, on March 9, 1832.
On either side of the memorial home’s entryway are bronze plaques bearing the names of individuals who formed the Lincoln Farm Association in 1906. They include such notables as the 27th president William H. Taft, author Samuel L. Clemens (also known as Mark Twain), journalist and biographer Ida Tarbell, and politician William J. Bryan.
In the early 1900s, the Lincoln Farm Association spearheaded a fundraising effort to raise $350,000 from 100,000 American citizens in order to build the memorial. President Theodore Roosevelt was prominent in the story of how Lincoln’s birthplace became an official National Park Service Historical Park. Roosevelt laid the memorial’s cornerstone on the centennial of Lincoln’s birth, Feb. 12, 1909. Prominent in the visitor center’s entryway are photographs of Roosevelt, as well as Taft, who dedicated the memorial, which John Russell Pope designed in 1911.
More History to Explore
After seeing Lincoln’s birthplace and gleaning information from park rangers and volunteers, travelers can take a 10-mile countryside drive to the even more bucolic setting at Knob Creek. This is where the Lincolns moved in 1811, when Abe was still a toddler, after a land dispute at Sinking Springs. His father, Thomas, leased 30 acres. At the time, this area was frontier land, but fertile for clearing to grow crops. As one park ranger stated, “It’s still very similar to how it was when Lincoln was growing up—no memorial, no manicured areas.”Along the densely wooded Knob Creek, signs inform visitors that young Abe might have drowned during a flash flood had not a visiting friend, Austin Gollaher, pulled him to safety. Also on the site, is another replica cabin, similar to the one-room birthplace cabin—with fireplace and sleeping loft—that the Lincolns occupied while living at Knob Creek, until 1816. They moved again when Abe was 7 years old.
Further, split-rail fencing on the Knob Creek site shows how Abe got one of his nicknames, “rail splitter.”
There’s a small visitor center on the property, but this is a natural area meant for reflection. What was life like for young Abe? How did his time at Knob Creek help shape the American history titan he became?
