Abraham Lincoln Birthplace: Kentucky Boyhood Home at Knob Creek Unit Cultural Landscape

he Abraham Lincoln Boyhood Home is located in LaRue County, Kentucky, seven miles from Hodgensville. Although the original cabin does not exist, the overall landscape reflects the period that Abraham Lincoln lived at Knob Creek as well as the commemoration of his early rural life.

The site is located in a flat valley along Knob Creek surrounded by adjacent agricultural fields and woodlands with several knobs, or hills, rising steeply nearby. The cultural landscape includes the buildings and features associated with the history of tourism to the area during the 1930s.

"The place Knob Creek, I remember well— but I was not born there... My earliest recollection, however, is of the Knob Creek place." Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to Samuel Haycraft, 1860 (in NPS Cultural Landscape Inventory)

The reconstructed log cabin at Abraham Lincoln Boyhood Home, added to the site in 1931-33, replicates Lincoln’s boyhood home. NPS Photo

The landscape includes two historic buildings and a picnic area along the old Bardstown Green River Turnpike. The Lincoln Tavern, a one-and-a-half story log building, was constructed in 1933 to serve motorists who were stopping by the site and to exhibit Lincoln memorabilia. The second historic building is a single pen log cabin, reconstructed in 1931-33 (from ca. 1800 logs) that replicates Lincoln’s boyhood home. The logs have half dovetailed notching and mud chinking. The cabin once held domestic and agricultural artifacts and has been stabilized.

Entrance sign at Knob Creek NPS Photo

The Abraham Lincoln Boyhood Home on Knob Creek is locally significant for its role in the history of LaRue County tourism (1933-1938). In addition to the structures, the orientation of the buildings to the highway and the semi-circular entrance drive accommodated motorists and highlighted the iconography associated with Lincoln.

The landscape has further significance as the setting of Abraham Lincoln's formative years (1811-1816).

The orientation of the buildings to the highway and the semi-circular entrance drive accommodate motorists and highlight the iconography associated with Lincoln.

Lincoln Tavern at Knob Creek NPS Photo

Many aspects of the landscape still exist from the time Lincoln lived at Knob Creek and contribute to the setting that he once looked out on as a young boy. Knob Creek, the flat valley farmland, and the steep knobs still communicate the sense of place that Lincoln experienced.

The road, now US highway 31, is also a contributing historic feature of the landscape. The Bardstown Green River Turnpike was a major route of transportation, and Lincoln likely witnessed both local residents and travelers passing by.

The cultural landscape of the Boyhood Home still conveys the setting and context in which Abraham Lincoln spent his early, formative years and the later commemoration of the site as a tourist destination.

Quick Facts

• Cultural Landscape Type: Designed / Vernacular
• National Register Significance Level: Local
• National Register Significance Criteria: A,B
• Period of Significance: 1811-1816, 1925-1941

Landscape Links

• Cultural Landscape Inventory report
• National Register of Historic Places: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site
• NPS Photo Gallery
• More about NPS Cultural Landscapes

Where this belongs

• Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park

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