Abraham Lincoln was born in February 1809 in a one room cabin on the Sinking Spring farm. They only lived on this farm for two years before a land dispute forced them to move. This was the wild frontier in those days. The road that went past their cabin was called the Cumberland Highway, a wagon road that began on the east side of the Cumberland Gap. It is now US-31. They moved to a farm they were leasing in Knob Valley while they worked through the legal system on the claim to Sinking Springs. Then years later they were again forced to move by another legal dispute to the land ownership. They also lost their court case on the Sinking Springs land. So they pulled up stakes and moved to what is now Indiana where they lived for 14 years. The memorial by Sinking Springs was created as the centennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. The monument was paid for with funding from average everyday Americans with donation from pennies to $25. The building was built between 1909 and 1911 and a single room cabin, using what was believed to be logs from the cabin Abraham Lincoln was born in (later research proved this to be false), was reassembled inside the building (Now referred to as the “Symbolic Cabin”). President Theodore Roosevelt laid the cornerstone for the memorial on Feb 12, 1909. President Taft dedicated the memorial in 1911. The Memorial and the 110 acres around it were turned over to the federal government in 1916. The Memorial transitioned to the park service in 1933. The ceiling of the building has 16 stars to represent he was the 16thpresident and there are 56 steps leading up to the memorial, one for each year of his life.
We decided to drive over to the Memorial this afternoon to avoid the 4thof July crowd. We drove over by US-31, the old Cumberland Highway, and were surprised to find we crossed back over to the Eastern Time zone. This meant we had an hour less time than we had expected. It’s a pretty drive through the rolling green countryside of Kentucky. We were pleasantly surprised to find the Visitor Center open, so we were able to tour the exhibits and view the park film. Only the back entrance to the Memorial Building was open so all we could see was the back wall of the “Symbolic Cabin”. We explored the Sinking Spring and hiked one of the side trails through the woods. It was so hot and humid, even the walk through the woods left us sweating.
Back at the Wander, Etta saw her first Firefly. This light suddenly appearing in front of her startled her, but she quickly figured out they were harmless and she now ignores them.
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| Entrance Sign |
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Memorial Building
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Sinking Springs
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Symbolic Cabin in the memorial building
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