INTRODUCTION

farm as well as the location of several significant
features. At its current level of development, the
historic landscape of Abraham Lincoln Birthplace
National Historic Site is most significant as a
designed memorial landscape.

Summary

The landscape history of the site known today as
the Birthplace Unit of the Abraham Lincoln
Birthplace National Historic Site illustrates the
evolution ofa relatively undeveloped farmstead to
a fully developed memorial park visited by many
thousands of people each year. From a review of
the available documents, the integrity of the
historic landscape of the Thomas Lincoln
farmstead, which was also known as Sinking
Spring or Nolin Creek Farm, has been lost. The
most notable physical features of the historic
farmstead—the Boundary Oak, the Sinking
Spring, and the knoll upon which the Lincoln

4 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

cabin was said to have been built—were all altered
in subsequent attempts to preserve them. Other
landscape features of the Lincoln farm
(agricultural fields, barns, and outbuildings) either
did not exist or were removed or relocated by
subsequent owners. Construction of the
Memorial Building by the Lincoln Farm
Association, followed by the federal government’s
development to create a park, erased the last
vestiges of the site’s agricultural past. These
changes took place in spite of the fact that
throughout the commemorative history of the
site, beginning with Dennett’s 1894 purchase of
the “old Creal place,’ each owner’s stated purpose
was to preserve and interpret the humble
beginnings of one of our greatest presidents.
Although the acknowledged importance of the
simple log cabin in its rural setting remains
significant to the interpretation of “Honest Abe,”
the “Rail-Splitter,” the site continues to evolve
toward a purely commemorative setting.


SITE HistoRY

at

FIGURE 23. Lincoln F: ional Monument - Reservation Map, 1932.

National Park Service 25



SITE History

“supervision and acting upon matters pertaining
to the Lincoln Farm and Memorial,” but he
hesitated to dismiss Jones because of his
association with the LFA. Only after a letter of
complaint arrived in February 1927, from
Hodgenville’s Chamber of Commerce through
their congressman, Representative Martin B.
Madden, reporting that the “Memorial Building
and its surroundings to be in a state of
deterioration, did the War Department seize the
opportunity to relieve Jones of his duties. In April
of 1927, the Quartermaster General formally
dismissed Jones, and the park’s oversight became
the responsibility of the Regional Quartermaster
at Jeffersonville, Indiana.

In response to this administrative change, Norris
Stayton, Lieutenant Colonel, Engineering Branch,
Jeffersonville Quartermaster Intermediate Depot,
was sent to assess the condition of the park. A
survey of the property, “Plot of the Western Half
of the Lincoln Farm and Memorial,” had been
completed in June 1928 by Francis Maslin. The
“Report on the Lincoln Farm & Memorial,” dated
July 19, 1928, contained thirty-two, fully indexed
notations, with supporting material such as
annotated photographs and appendices. The
teport included everything from a brief history of
the park to recommendations for improvements.
It also contained some interesting facts such as:
the “rapid increase in the number of visitors” that
related to the increase of automobile traffic to
Florida along the improved Jackson Highway and
the growing popularity of Mammoth Cave.47 The
report emphasized the need for a surveyed
boundary to reestablish property corners, as well
as a detailed topographic survey.48 It also noted
that all development had been on the western half
of the property, and that the eastern portion was
“swampy land, it being the natural drainage basin
for the surrounding country” The eastern half had
“no improvements or historic features of especial
interest except that it contains the only

47. Several bus companies established a tour to
Louisville, Mammoth Cave, Lincoln Birthpiace, and
Bardstown. By 1927 the annual visitation reached
nearly 20,000.

48. The survey completed in 1928 only included the
western half of the park.

[boundary] line, ... which remains from the
original Lincoln Farm.”49

Most important was the report’s description of
the existing conditions at the site and
recommendations for immediate “improvements”
that were not reflected on the subsequent plans
drawn up by the Engineering Branch. The
following is an excerpt from one of the site
descriptions:

[T]he land is rolling, bordering on
ruggedness, and geologically belongs to
the cavernous limestone of the middle
Mississippi system. . . . about 30 acres [of
the farm] are cleared for farming by the
assistant caretaker, the greater part of the
farm is almost impenetrable except with
the assistance of a brush-hook, due to a
dense undergrowth of wild grape,
greenbrier, blackberry, sumack |sic] and
other shrubs. The farm is well wooded on
both sides of the highway with cedar in
preponderance. Other trees in order of
frequency of occurrence are — several
varieties of oak, wild cherry, wild plum,
sycamore, maple, ash poplar and black
locust. .., The tracts that are worked by
the assistant caretaker are in corn, though
at other times some hay has been grown.
Nearly all the adjacent land is cleared and
most of it is under cultivation. About four
acres of the land under cultivation by the
assistant caretaker are on the slope off
onto the Memorial Building between the
Plaza and the log house, presenting an
unsightly appearance and at the same time
contributing to the deposit of silt on the
plaza by erosion. Instructions have been
given to discontinue cultivation of this area
and in September a mixture of three parts
Kentucky blue grass and one part red top
and one part white clover will be sown at
the rate of 175 pounds per acre.° (Fig. 20)

The purpose of this grassing was to remove one
source of the Plaza’s mud deposit and to provide a
retarding influence for surface water freely
flowing from above to the Plaza. In addition to the

49. “Report of the Lincoln Farm & Memorial,” 7.
50. “Report on the Lincoln Farm & Memorial,” 7.

National Park Service 21


Site HistorRY

FIGURE 31. The Boundary Oak, 1938.

concrete and banded with iron and guy wires. The
tree was in danger of being strangled by the iron
band and old decay had been detected behind the
concrete.”°4 According to a memo from Maslin to
the Quartermaster General in July of 1929, a tree
surgeon was called in to assess the tree’s
condition, and the tree was given only a 50
percent chance of survival. In addition to this
already precarious condition, the engineering
solution to the Plaza’s flooding problems included
the construction of a retention area at the base of
the oak where floodwaters could be held and
allowed to dissipate slowly so as not submerge the
Plaza. Period photographs show that the work did
not visually impair the oak, but it surely was a
factor in hastening the oak’s death, which
occurred in 1976 (Fig. 31).

Creal House. The War Department's 1928 report
commented on the picturesque view to the Creal
house, which had been vacant for years at this
point and was often misidentified as the Lincoln
cabin by visitors (Fig. 32). Maslin suggested that
action be taken to renovate the house as either the
superintendent’s residence or as an exhibit on
nineteenth-century farm life. However, when
Maslin was relieved of his duties later that year,
plans for any renovation work were shelved. No
work was undertaken to improve the condition of
the Creal House, with the exception of adding a
flagstone path to the front of the house from the
approach road.

64. Peterson, 51

30 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

FIGURE 32. The Creal house, 1928.

FIGURE 33. Rustic picnic pavilion and restroom facility,
1938.

Other Structures. Two rustic log structures were
constructed to the northeast of the Memorial
Building: a picnic pavilion and a restroom facility
(Fig. 33). Both structures were a considerable
distance from the parking ellipse and could not be
accessed by automobile (see “Circulation” for a
description of the walkways constructed to
provide visitor access). A stone maintenance
garage and two stone pump houses were placed
off the service road.

Park Landscape and Other Vegetation. Both the
1932 Reservation Map, and the undated plans of
the western half of the park, illustrate a significant
amount of the western half under “natural forest
growth.” Maslin’s 1928 report described this same
wooded area as dense with underbrush and listed
the following extant tree and shrub species:
Trees—principally cedar, some white oak, wild
cherry, wild plum, sycamore, poplar, black
walnut—and underbrush—blackberry, wild
grape, green brier, and sumac. The Reservation
Map, the only one to illustrate the eastern half of


xii Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit


TREATMENT

FIGURE 71. Asphalt walk at the rear of the Visitor Center, FIGURE 72. Walkway to the Nancy Lincoln Inn, 2003.
2003.

contributing and can be changed if and when
it is necessary/desirable). Away from the
Memorial Plaza, walks can be less formally
aligned and different materials for the walk
paths could be considered within a palette of
material appropriate to the Memorial
Landscape.

¢ Screen with native vegetation the asphalt walk
at the back of the Visitor Center so that it
cannot be seen from the Memorial Plaza or

i es a
from the walkway that winds through the FIGURE 73. Stone edgings near the Sinking Spring, 2003.
woods to the back of the Memorial Building

(Fig. 71)

¢ Preserve and maintain Memorial Building

= ‘ Stairway and walls.
¢ Establish a fully accessible walk from the west

end of the parking lot to the Memorial Plaza.
Along its route develop a small plaza that
aligns with the Memorial Building for a “best”
view of the Memorial Building

Remove modern features such as the old
speaker grills.

¢ Remove the steps on the northwest side of the
Visitor Center and the connecting concrete

¢ Explore options for rerouting the walkway to
as aggregate walkway (Fig. 74).

the Nancy Lincoln Inn. The existing walkway
causes confusion for the visitor as to the
location of Park property, because of the Inn’s
proximity to the Birthplace Unit (Fig. 72)

Terracing.

¢ Rehabilitate the lawn terraces. The original
terraced lawn panels adjacent to the

* Maintain the stone edgings near the Sinking Memorial Building Stairway have lost their

Spring (Fig. 73)
pring ("8-73 “crisp” definition over time. In conjunction

with the replanting of the red cedars, strip the
Walls and Steps. P iB P
existing lawn, reshape the terraces, and re-
sod the panels.
e Preserve and maintain the existing steps and P

walls in the Memorial Plaza.

62 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit



Site HistorY

Plans approved in 1983 called for the replacement
of all the War Department flagstone walkways and
steps with exposed aggregate concrete sidewalks.
This work was completed in 1984 and included
the walkway to the Boundary Oak and the
walkways to the Memorial Building Terrace. A
poured aggregate concrete landing was
constructed at the top of the steps leading down
to the Sinking Spring. In 1991, the Memorial
Building’s north (rear) entrance was altered to

meet guidelines in compliance with the Americans

with Disabilities Act. At this time, the installation
of an automatic door, concrete ramp, and hand

rails occurred

Circulation. In 2001, U.S 31E was widened to four
lanes, necessitating the removal of the grass traffic

islands.

Sinking Spring. In 1995, a handicapped
accessible water fountain was installed at the top
of the Sinking Spring steps

Boundary Oak. In 1976, following a year in which
the area surrounding the Boundary Oak flooded,
the new growth put out by the white oak failed to
mature. The tree was finally taken down in 1986,
and testing revealed the age to be 195 years. Before
its death, the oak reached 6 feet in diameter, 90
feet in height, and had a crown spread of 115 feet

Fig. 45)

Maintenance Complex/Park Housing. The stone

garage in the maintenance complex was removed

in 1973, and the superintendent's residence was

removed circa 1996.

itor Center. Plans approved in 1991
(completed in 1992) called for a permanent roof to
be constructed enclosing the entry courtyard
Unlike any of the other horizontal lines of the
Visitor Center, this addition was a steep tinted

40 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

FIGURE 45. The Boundary Oak, undated.

glass front-facing gable. A major addition to the
Visitor Center occurred between 1993-94,
including the relocation of rest rooms and
administrative offices and the addition of a
handicapped ramp and water fountain. The
installation of a new roof occurred in 2003, which
changed the roof lines back to a flat profile and
removed the glass atrium

Picnic and Recreation Area. Local pressure to
provide amenities that did not exist within 40 or
50 miles of this area resulted in the eastern half of
the Birthplace Unit being developed as a
recreation area beginning in 1968. Picnic tables,
restrooms, interpretive trails, and open fields
maintained for active recreation were added to
accommodate the visitor



Site History

eee te (oa

FIGURE 42. Aerial photograph, 1959 (note change in vegetation from Figure 26)

Sinking Spring. No changes or improvements
seem to have occurred at this time.

Boundary Oak. Although not documented, it
would appear from period photographs that the
park continued to change the conditions
immediately surrounding the Boundary Oak. An
additional six-and-one-half acres was purchased
in the late 1940s to protect the oak, but period
photographs document continued manipulation
of the area for flood control (Fig. 43)

Other Structures. Several structures were added
during Mission 66, the most important being the
Visitor Center, and several structures were
removed. Each of these will be described in brief
detail, beginning with the removals.

The demolition of the log picnic pavilion and
restrooms occurred in 1959 in association with the
construction of the Visitor Center. As early as
1934, the NPS felt that the picnic structure had lost
its use, as picnicking had been discontinued on
park grounds. The Nancy Lincoln Inn provided

FIGURE 43. The Boundary Oak, 1959.

38 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincolr


EXISTING CONDITIONS

FIGURE 49. Parking ellipse, 2003.

include picnic tables and a shelter, restroom
facilities, walking trails, and parking. Because L
31E is a busy north/south thoroughfare, there is no

accommodation for a pedestrian crossing
between the two areas, and very little visual
connection is available because of the rolling
topography, as well as the width and plantings
associated with the highway

Circulation

Vehicles enter the Birthplace Unit from U.S. 31E
onto an asphalt two-way entrance road. Traffic
circulates one-way around an ellipse with angled
parking on both sides (Fig. 49). A graveled

overflow parking area is located east of the ellipse.

A one-lane, asphalt service road provides access
to the maintenance complex and to park housing.
A graveled section continues to the back of the
Memorial Building. An asphalt loop with pull-off
parking serves the recreation facilities developed
in 1968. This drive is directly across from the
service road

A 3-mile trail constructed circa 1970 provides
visitors with a short walk through the woods west
of the Memorial Building. Several trails exploring
the wooded areas of the eastern half of the
Birthplace Unit were developed in the early 1970s.
Another major addition in 1991 was a raised 800-
foot-long boardwalk from the east end of the
Visitor Center to the back of the Memorial
Building called the Pathway of a President

(Fig. 50). Its chief purpose was to provide a

46 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

FIGURE 51. Lack of screening for the Nancy Lincoln Inn,
2001

completely accessible route to the Memorial
Building, which was previously unavailable to
visitors. Almost the entire length of the route is
wooded, with an overlook down onto the
walkway east of the Memorial Building.

Views and Vistas

The maturing vegetation, particularly the
evergreen trees, is starting to block most of the
important views associated with the Pope and
War Department landscape. The only remaining
unimpeded view is from the Memorial Plaza up to
the Memorial Building. The woodland adjacent to
the cedars, and the overly mature cedars
themselves, have increasingly compromised this
vista as well. At the same time, the cedars planted
between the Memorial Plaza and the Nancy
Lincoln Inn no longer function as a screen, due to
the loss of the lower limbs (Fig. 51).

2.  Superintendent’s Annual Report, 1991



EXISTING CONDITIONS

Rte

FIGURE 58. Maintenance complex, 1996.

FIGURE 59. Park housing, 2001

50 Cultural Landsc

pe Report

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

Small-scale Features

In 1987, the traditional rail fences within the
Birthplace Unit were dismantled and
reconstructed.5 The hand-split rails are replaced
ona ten-year cycle using chestnut oak or red oak.
In 1991, the preservation crew completed the
repointing of the Memorial Building steps.° In
1995, the installation of a handicapped accessible
drinking fountain at the top of the Sinking Spring
steps occurred?

A set of historic granite entrance markers,
removed in the late 1940s or early 1950s, is
presently lying in the woods east of U.S. 31E.

Summary

Most of the changes and additions to the
Birthplace Unit in the last several decades have
been without the benefit of an overriding vision
for the landscape. With the addition of the Visitor
Center in the 1960s, the Birthplace Unit moved
away from a Memorial Landscape within a larger
agricultural setting to a homogeneous park
landscape, largely undifferentiated from area to
area. Mowing of large expanses of turf around the
Memorial Building, Visitor Center, and picnic area
occurs regularly during the growing season

5. Superintendent's Annual Report, 1987
6. Superintendent's Annual Report, 1991
7. Superintendent's Annual Report, 1995.



SITE HISTORY

Memorial Building to the Visitor Center, where a
more complete and accurate story could be told.

The sesquicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth
was celebrated at the park on February 12, 1959. In
light of that event, the park’s name was revised a
third time to its present nomenclature when
Congress approved “Abraham Lincoln Birthplace
National Historic Site.”

In preparation for the sesquicentennial, the
Eastern Office, Division of Design and
Construction produced a fourteen-sheet set of
contract drawings for the Visitor Center,
residences (two), and sewer and sanitary system
in 1958. Included with these drawings were
planting plans that covered these same areas. The
Mission 66 additions and changes to the park
continue to define how the site is used today. The
following is a description of the work
accomplished.

Site Design and Layout. The new development
associated with Mission 66 altered the design and
layout of the landscape as developed by the LFA
and War Department. Construction of a Visitor
Center off the parking ellipse with the intent to
intercept visitors on their way to the Memorial
Building resulted in a complete shift in how
visitors experienced the site. The Visitor Center
became the park’s primary building, and from its
exhibits a full and more accurate orientation to
Abraham Lincoln could be presented. The
planned experience was for visitors to then
proceed to the Memorial Building, the
significance of which was compromised by the
questionable authenticity of the Birth Cabin.
Peterson’s administrative history observed that
from the time of the Visitor Center’s construction
to the present day (1968), the policy was to avoid
the Birth Cabin and to interpret by omission.

The construction of the Visitor Center required
the elimination of several parking spaces
(approximately 12), some of which were recouped
by cutting into the parking island on the south
side. A second, gravel parking lot was constructed
along the south side of the entrance road in order
to fulfill the need for overflow parking. In this
expansion of visitor and park services, Abraham

36 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site was able
to fully function as a park.

Circulation. A major reworking of the park
entrance occurred at this time. A long north-
south- running grass island was added along U.S.
31E to create acceleration and deceleration lanes.
The entrance was significantly widened and two
additional grass islands were improved to direct
traffic flow. Because of grading associated with
this work, a deep swale was created that placed
the park’s boundary below the grade of the road,
and the rail fence was moved to this location. With
the exception of the spur drive that was
constructed to access the two new residences, no
additional roadwork was accomplished in the
park.

Views and Vistas. The addition of a Visitor
Center in such a prominent location changed the
views to and from the Memorial Building
Landscape. In addition to the building, trees
added to the planting island to screen newly
created parking spaces also changed views along
the entrance road (Fig. 42)

The change in grade associated with work at the
entrance altered views and vistas into the property
from U.S. 31E. The swale that was created north of
the entrance caused the park boundary to drop
below that of the road. Therefore, the rail fence
that defined the edge of the property dropped out
of view for much of the distance.

Memorial Building and Landscape. One major
change occurred at this time. The pea gravel
landings along the Memorial Stairway were
replaced with exposed aggregate concrete circa
1958.3

Plaza and Flagstaff. No work occurred in this
area of the park.

Small-scale Features. Period photographs do not
illustrate any benches, planters, trash receptacles,
or water fountains being added to the Memorial
Landscape as a result of this effort.

73. See “Replacement of Stair Landings and Walks”
drawing 338/2015 dated 3/30/1955.


SiTE HISTORY

commemorate the Lincoln birthplace by the state
of Kentucky failed in 1886, and for another decade
appeals languished. In 1894, an article appeared in
the Louisville Commercial that the 110 acres of “the
old Creal place” was to be purchased for not more
than $3,000 by Major S. P. Gross—the man who
had successfully run the Kentucky Building’s
restaurant at the Chicago World’s Fair—to
establish a memorial “like Mount Vernon or the
Hermitage” at Lincoln’s birthplace. Gross’s plans
never materialized, but in November of that same
year, Alfred W. Dennett, a New York restaurateur
and speculator, bought the property for $3,000 to
develop a hotel and park.'4

Without funds to support his long-term plans,
Dennett moved quickly to capitalize on an
encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic
to be held 50 miles away at Louisville, Kentucky,
in the spring of 1895. Dennett planned to promote
Lincoln’s birthplace as a side trip to the thousands
expected at the encampment, for which he would
arrange the transportation. By charging a steep
admission to the property, he hoped to recoup
some of his initial investment. To add interest,
Dennett assigned his associate and later caretaker
of the property, the Rev. James W. Bigham, to
rebuild the “log cabin. . . [with] identical logs that
were in the original cabin.”!5 Bigham bought a
cabin from John A. Davenport (which was
situated one mile north of the Sinking Spring
Farm), and dismantled and reassembled it on the
knoll above the spring,’ Despite these efforts,
fewer than 100 soldiers who gathered for the
encampment opted for the expensive trip to see
the Sinking Spring Farm and “birth cabin.”

The earliest known photograph of the site was
taken by Russell T. Evans, of Evans Art Company,
Elizabethtown, Kentucky, in the spring of 1895
sometime after the cabin was put in place (Fig. 1).
According to Peterson, this was one of a set of
photographs commissioned by Bigham for
souvenir or promotional material. In 1895, the
photograph was published in McClure’s Magazine

14, Peterson, 9-11.

15. Hays, 134.

16. Robert W. Blythe, Abraham Lincoln Birthplace
National Historic Site: Historic Resources Study
(Atlanta: Southeast Regional Office, 2001), 28.

8 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

to accompany an article by the editor, Ida Tarbell,
“Lincoln’s Boyhood in Kentucky and Indiana,” in
which she notes that “the cabin was long ago torn
down, but the logs were saved” and “the old cabin
[was rebuilt] on the original site.”

It is very interesting that the photograph
illustrated the primary features of the site: the
cabin restored to its knoll above the Sinking
Spring and the full-canopied Boundary Oak in
the distance. The foreground is a recently mown
field, with multiple small haystacks in the middle
ground. The only access to the site is a narrow dirt
path, which two men with bicycles are standing
astride. A lone small tree is in the foreground and
acluster of small trees surround the depression
marking the “Sinking Spring,” and the background
appears to be a mature forest. Another interesting
feature to note from this photograph is the
composition of the major features. Without any
other document or plat to verify the orientation of
the cabin, it would seem that the Lincoln Farm
Association developed the memorial site from this
photograph, orienting the Pope Memorial
Building, with the cabin inside, according to this
image. The only reference to Dennet’s having
altered the character of the property at this time is
to his having planted bluegrass. The small size of
the stacks could represent grass cuttings, but given
the thick mature stand of grass in the photograph,
it is unlikely that Dennet did more than overseed
and harvest an existing field.

Perennially in debt, Dennett tried other means to
generate income from his purchase. With little
hope of regular visitation at the Sinking Spring
Farm, Dennett had the cabin dismantled and sent
to the 1897 Tennessee Exposition at Nashville to
be displayed alongside the alleged Jefferson Davis
birth cabin, another Bigham purchase. The cabins
continued to tour with the hope of generating
funds through admissions and souvenir sales. The
logs of both cabins were finally brought to New
York and stored in the basement of a mission
Dennett operated until their purchase by the
Lincoln Farm Association.'9

17. Peterson, 12.
18. Peterson, 19.
19. Blythe, 29.


SITE History

the monumental character of the Pope-designed
landscape. They illustrate how Pope’s entire effort
was crowded into the southwest corner of the
property, with its principal views offsite (see a
more detailed description under Views and
Vistas).

The War Department's initial design efforts
recorded on Maslin’s “Plot of the Western Half of
The Lincoln Farm and Memorial” proposed
rerouting the approach road onto the adjacent
property, south of the park, which would allow
the proposed parking area to formally address the
Memorial Landscape. However, the “Reservation
Map” (1932), which appears to be an as-built plan
of the major improvements accomplished by the
War Department, recorded a solution that was
within the original boundaries of the park5?
These completed improvements included: a final
alignment and paving for the approach road; a
parking ellipse at the termination of the approach
road; an improved Plaza with walkways on axis
with the flagpole and Memorial Building, lawn
and a stone wall; an underground drainage system
and associated engineering structures to control
the seasonal flooding of the Plaza; and steps,
landing, and retaining wall associated with
improving visitor access to the Sinking Spring.

In addition to these improvements, the War
Department’s plan provided for constructing a
new comfort station, pavilion, and maintenance
building, which were all located as the 1928 report
suggested—approximately northeast of the
Memorial Building. The plan recorded the
perimeter fencing as “wire” in every case but one.
The fence along the western half’s south property
line, adjacent to the Jackson Highway, is noted as
“rail.”

Circulation. The approach road and parking
ellipse were major enhancements achieved by the
War Department. As designed and constructed,
the gently curving asphalt approach road began at
a widened and improved entrance at the Jackson

59. The concept of rerouting the approach road onto
the adjacent property was no longer an option, as
local entrepreneurs opened the Nancy Lincoln Inn
directly across the property line.

26 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

FIGURE 24. View of parking ellipse, 1930s.

FIGURE 25. View of entrance, 1934.

Highway following, for the most part, the LFA
alignment. It terminated in a parking ellipse sited
approximately 5 feet above and just east of the
Plaza. A generously sized grass island
(approximately 220 feet by 120 feet) formed the
center of the ellipse. Using the more detailed,
undated plans, the parking ellipse was to have had
a 20-foot-wide center travel lane, with 18-foot
parking lanes on either side. Although the parking
was not striped, the allocated space would allow
in excess of fifty parked cars (Fig. 24).

Entry treatments are only documented in period
photographs. Although no record details their
removal, it is safe to assume that the War
Department removed the LFA pink granite entry
markers because of the improvements at the
entrance (widening, paving, and planted islands).
The LFA markers were replaced with four stone
pillars with a pointed top. Wire gates were added
to close the entrance when the park was closed to
visitors (Fig. 25).


Treatment Recommendations

It is evident that the designed Memorial
Landscape as developed by the LFA was
significant but was seriously altered by
subsequent attempts to "improve conditions” by
both the War Department and the NPS. The War
Department's work continued the formal
approach of Pope's memorial design, and
although they added a few small structures behind
the Memorial Building—picnic pavilion,
restrooms, maintenance garage, and pump
houses—the overall Pope Memorial Landscape
was untouched. Many of the features extant
during the War Department era have been
removed, including the Creal place, but these
structures did not contribute to the designed
Memorial Landscape. Because of development
outside the park that neither the War Department
nor the NPS could control, implementation of the
NPS 1935 Planting Plan changed the way visitors
perceived the site, from one with external views
and vistas, to one that is very internally focused.
The installation of red cedars accomplished two
purposes—framing the approach walk and view
toward the Memorial Building in much the same
way the earlier poplars had and screening the
Memorial Landscape from nearby intrusions.

The Memorial Landscape as implemented
through the 1935 Planting Pian has been in place
for more than fifty years. Therefore, the treatment
recommendations presented here focus on
preserving and enhancing the features associated
with this landscape. The major character-
defining feature of the Memorial Landscape is the
cedar allée. Due to the advanced age of the red
cedars in the allée and the loss of several of the
trees, the allée’s original intent of leading visitors
to the Memorial has been lost. The few historic
cedars that do remain have lost their columnar
shape because of their age, and there is no longer a
defined edge between the cedars and the
encroaching woodland. In order to stop the
deterioration of the Memorial Landscape, the
allée must be rehabilitated. Its existence is

essential to preserving the park’s cultural
landscape.

Specific recommendations concerning treatment
of the allée and other landscape features are
presented below and on the accompanying
treatment plans (Fig. 81 & 82). These
recommendations have been developed and
refined through consultation between NPS
regional landscape architects, park management,
and other interested parties during the
preparation of this cultural landscape report.

Memorial
Landscape

The Memorial Landscape is considered to be all
the land on the west side of the Birthplace Unit
that constitutes the original LFA purchase, plus
the additional land that was purchased to protect
the Boundary Oak. Because of the length of time
associated with the development of this area, as
well as the irreversible changes to the original
landscape, rehabilitation of the overall Memorial
Landscape is the recommended treatment
approach, Within each landscape characteristic
described below, certain features, because of their
historical importance and the ability to document
an earlier more significant setting, will be
considered as partial restorations within the
overall rehabilitation framework of the Birthplace
Unit landscape. It is recommended that a
Preservation Maintenance Plan be developed for
the Memorial Landscape to address long-term
preservation of the site after suggested treatment
recommendations are implemented.

Circulation and Hardscape
Walks and edgings.

¢ Retain the formal alignment of the walks as

they pass through the Memorial Plaza
(existing paving material not considered

National Park Service 61


Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit,
Abraham Lincoln Birthplace
National Historic Site

Cultural Landscape Report

q
seunmauna| (oma

3-17-04

Chief, Cultural Resources Date
Southeast Region

Approved by: Kam t Ky. Leth 3/ ¢/e OF
Superintendént Date
Abraham Lincoln Birthplace
National Historic Site

Concurred by: RoW ote —— 3 “S7-OF
Associate Regioka) Director, Date
Cultural Resource Stewardship
Southeast Region

Concurred by: \yo x \ Ps, Q 3-\8- ou
Regional Director Date

Southeast Region


TREATMENT

FIGURE 76. Memorial Building
Landscape showing original
hedge configuration, 1928.

because they have lost their purpose in the
landscape (the buildings they were planted to
screen have been removed).

Hedges. The formal hedges that were established
by the LFA—two different heights defining the
grass panels and an enclosing hedge that defined
the Memorial Plaza—are important character-
defining features of the original Memorial
Landscape that need to be rehabilitated/restored.
Because portions of the hedge need to be
replanted and because the privet currently
planted is invasive, a substitution may be made for
the entire hedge (Fig. 76).

© Replace privet hedge with Ilex crenata ‘Steeds’
(Japanese holly). This cultivar would be an
appropriate choice as it shears well and is cold
hardy. Use 3 gal. containers planted 2 ft. on
center.

* Replant missing hedge. The existing hedge
along the Memorial Stairway represents a
small portion of the 1930s hedge planting. In
order to re-establish the hedge to match the
alignment and heights in 1933, at least the
missing outer row defining the terraced sod
panels should be reestablished.

64 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

sNCOIn.MEMOTIA

Rehabilitate the hedge defining the edge of
the Memorial Plaza to match the alignment on
the 1935 Planting Plan.

Develop maintenance guidelines for the
hedges to be included in the Preservation
Maintenance Plan.

Groundcovers.

Maintain existing turfgrass species. There is
no identified mix of seed to reestablish. The
Park may use a turfgrass species or mix that is
tolerant of site conditions.

Replace failing turfgrass in areas where the
conditions have become too shady with an
appropriate native ground cover. Periodic
hand weeding will be necessary (see
Appendix).

Do not replant vinca (Vinca minor) in grass
panels on either side of the Memorial
Stairway. Although these areas were specified
on the 1935 Planting Plan to be planted with
vinca, this plant is no longer present in these
areas. Vinca is a non-native invasive plant
that has escaped into the surrounding
woodlands. Vinca should be controlled and


TREATMENT

FIGURE 74. Steps on the west side of the Visitor Center, 2003

Vegetation

Memorial Building Trees. The surviving cedars,
which were the replacement trees for the
Lombardy poplars, have outlived their formal
design intent and should be replaced with a
columnar variety of an appropriate size and
character. The original design of the allée
incorporated a columnar, deciduous trees species,
probably Populus nigra ‘Italica’ (Lombardy black
poplar), a cultivar introduced into this country in
1784. Due to Dothichiza populea canker, trees
seldom survive longer than 30 years. Populus nigra
“Thevestina’ (aka ‘Theves’ and ‘Afghanica’) is
supposedly somewhat more disease resistant, but
its growth habit is broader. For these reasons, it is
felt that replacement of the current Juniperus
virginiana with a Populus sp. would be of short-
lived benefit with less-than-satisfactory
restoration of the original design, although early
photographs document some very poor
specimens of this tree. Additionally, a return to the
Pope-era landscape would require that the
benches added by the War Department be
removed, another reason that this approach was
rejected.

Replanting red cedars in the allée would be the
most appropriate choice at this time as a
replacement plant for the historic landscape.
Their continued presence would help to preserve
the designed landscape implemented by the NPS
in the 1930s. Cultivars such as ‘Glauca’ or
‘Hillspire’ are both columnar varieties that would
be appropriate choices for establishing and
maintaining the allée as it was intended. It should

FIGURE 75. Loss of lower growth on red cedars, 2003.

be noted that this is a modern cultivar that will
provide a similar character to the 1930s plan. The
reason the red cedar failed to accomplish the
original design intent of the allée is because as it
grew older, it lost its lower growth and therefore
also lost its columnar form. If a columnar variety
is used as a replacement, the tree will retain its
columnar form and continue to create the
architectural edge that defines the allée (Fig. 75).

* Remove existing red cedars on both sides of
Memorial Stairway. Grind stumps to 12 in.
below grade, back fill holes with topsoil, and
mulch.

¢ Plant 34 columnar red cedars (17 each side).
Use field checked 20-ft. ‘Glauca’ or ‘Hillspire’
red cedars. Plant at the most auspicious time
of the year.

¢  Reestablish woodland edge. In order to
accomplish successful replacement of the
cedars, the encroaching woodland
(supplemented during the Park
Development-era) needs to be cut back from
the allée so that adequate light, air, and space
is provided. Remove trees within 20 ft. of new
red cedar planting to reestablish formal allée.
Thin remaining trees on both sides of new
plantings to allow for light penetration.

¢ Donotreplant cedar screen. When the
cedars that were placed on the north side of
the Memorial Building are dead or become
hazardous, they should not be replaced

National Park Service 63


TREATMENT

FIGURE 78. Cast concrete drinking fountain, 2003.

Entrance Markers.

¢ Move the historic granite entrance markers
located in the woods east of U.S. 31E toa
secure area. Future research may indicate
their original locations and allow their re-
erection. Failing that, consideration should be
given to using them as exhibits in the
Birthplace Unit’s interpretive program.

Sinking Spring

¢ Preserve and maintain the War Department

rock work associated with the Sinking Spring.

© Relocate the cast-concrete drinking fountain
away from the Memorial Plaza (Fig. 78).

© Reestablish the hedges and paths to their 1935
configuration in the area around the Sinking
Spring.

Boundary Oak

The historic setting of the Boundary Oak and the
Boundary Oak itself have been lost due to
structures that were built in the vicinity by the
War Department in an effort to resolve drainage
problems in the Memorial Plaza. Because the
Boundary Oak was an historic feature with
tremendous interpretive opportunities, an in-
kind replacement should be considered. There is
sufficient documentation of this area prior to its
manipulation to reconsider replanting a white oak
(Quercus alba) once a final solution for the
drainage problem has been found. The

66 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

engineering study needed to resolve these
problems is outside the scope of the CLR, but if it
is accomplished, the project should include
restoring the grade and location of the Boundary
Oak so that future replanting can be undertaken.

Entrance, Visitor Center
Approach, and Parking Area

¢ Maintain the snake rail fence. This feature is a
War Department addition with an association
to the early life of Abraham Lincoln. The
location of the fence should be used along the
boundary lines of the Birthplace Unit and to
separate formally mown grass on the
shoulders of the road from less frequently
mown fields. Wherever possible, establish the
location of the fence so that it can be seen
from the entrance road.

¢ Do not plant new trees in the vicinity of the
parking ellipse and the Visitor Center. There
has been an unacceptable amount of tree
planting in these locations. To the extent
possible, this area should be kept open to
interpret the rural setting of the birthplace.

¢ Minimize plantings associated with the
Visitor Center, except where screening is
needed at the back of this structure. All
additional or replacement plantings in this
area should be native plant species.

Maintenance Complex/Park
Housing

© Preserve the woodland character of this area
of the park.

* Control all invasive non-native plant species
affecting the western half of the park.

¢ Preserve the two remaining War
Department-era stone structures. Although
they are not considered contributing because
of alterations to the maintenance area, these
features should be preserved if possible.


FIGURE 18. Memorial Building Landscape, 1913

would have predated the Memorial Building
landscape improvements. The photograph
suggests that the site improvements described in
the 1910 report were limited to shaping the knoll
le on the Plaza. A

and achieving a smooth even g)

fence line can be distinguished along the southern
property boundary, and haystacks dot the field

beyond.

A series of photographs taken in July 1913
illustrates the full development of the Pope
landscape. The Lombardy poplars are full and
frame the Memorial Building as planned. A low
hedge enclosed the terraced panels of grass with a
second, taller hedge descending the slope, which
at the base of the stairs, turned and enclosed the
Memorial Plaza. The shadow of the flagpole is

evident across the gravel Plaza and a hint of its

anite base, encircled by a grass strip, is seen in
At this

the corner of the photograph (Fig. 18)
date, the sky beyond the Memorial Building is
unbroken by vegetation. Although the rest of the

site was not photographed, its continued

Site HISTORY

maintenance by the caretaker is documented in

the 1928 report referenced above.

Abraham Lincoln
National Park,
1916-Present

War Department Era,
1916-1933

Although efforts to transfer the property to the
state of Kentucky failed, the LFA continued to
lobby the U. S. Congress for national park status.
Finally in July 1916, President Woodrow Wilson
signed H. R. 8351, declaring the Lincoln birthplace
“forever dedicated to the purpose of a national
park or reservation” and “with an endowment
The
birthplace was put under the aegis of the War

fund of $50,000 in relation thereto?

42. Peterson, 99. It is interesting to note that the
Organic Act was not signed until August 25, 1916

ark Service 19



Site History

Virginians and North Carolinians flocked to the
“Kaintuckee” backcountry after 1782 because of
the thousands of land grants issued to
Revolutionary War veterans by the state of
Virginia, which still laid claim to the area. By 1789,
Virginia relinquished its claim to the territory and
in 1792 Kentucky became the fifteenth state to
enter the union, charted by the likes of Daniel
Boone and Richard Henderson’s Transylvania
Company. Thomas Lincoln’s father, Abraham,
moved from Virginia as early as 1782 to find fertile
land and a better life here at the end of the
Wilderness Road.

Thomas Lincoln-
Sinking Spring Farm,
1808-1816

Twas born February 12, 1809, in the then
Hardin County, Kentucky, at a point
within the now County of Larue, a mile or
amile and a half from where Hodgin’s Mill
now is. My parents being dead, and my
own memory not serving, I know no
means of identifying the precise locality. It
was on the Nolin.’

From this obscure beginning, one of the great men
of American history emerged. Pinpointing the
location and circumstances of Abraham Lincoln’s
vaguely described birthplace has been the work of
many historians. The most recent scholarship
documenting the history of Thomas Lincoln’s real
estate ventures in Kentucky was produced ina
report on Knob Creek Farm, the second
homestead, and the only Kentucky property
remembered by Abraham Lincoln. In reviewing
the county records, the author reconfirms that in
1808 Thomas Lincoln “possessed an assignment”
of land, which had a long and convoluted
ownership.”

1. Benjamin H. Davis, “Report on the Original Thomas
Lincoln Nolin Creek Farm” (Abraham Lincoln
Birthplace National Historic Site, 1948,

(ypescript), 1.

This land, originally part of a 30,000-acre land
grant of 1783 from the Commonwealth of Virginia
to Joseph Smith of Baltimore, was subdivided
more than once by 1808. Lincoln’s claim to a 300-
acre parcel relied on a “[David] Vance making ‘full
payment’ to [Richard] Mather” for a parcel that
was “to be twice as long as wide” and described as
“beginning at or near a spring called the sinking
spring” Despite this tenuous hold, in December
of 1808, Thomas moved with his pregnant wife,
Nancy, and their toddler, Sarah, three miles south
of Hodgen’s Mill (now Hodgenville) to a property
that lay along the South Fork of Nolin Creek.
Once there, Lincoln established a log homestead
on a rise above the “Sinking Spring”—which gave
the farm its name—and set to work on improving
his lot.

Early in the following year, Nancy Hanks Lincoln
gave birth to a son, called Abraham for his
paternal grandfather. In the two years that the
Lincoln family lived at Sinking Spring Farm, they
eked a living out of the land. Because no specific
records exist, one can only assume that like his
county neighbors, Thomas Lincoln planted
primarily corn, squash, and beans. The land was
mostly open with scattered trees and could be
improved for agricultural use. The land was
rolling, and it was on one of these small hills in the
southwest corner of the property, near a source of
clean water, that later accounts placed the
humble, one-room log cabin of Lincoln’s birth.
Specific details of the farm, such as actual crops,
field sizes, field arrangement, and numbers and
locations of outbuildings are not known.

Although early accounts dispute the length of
time the Lincoln’s remained at Sinking Spring
Farm, Kent Masterson Brown’s Knob Creek study

2. Kent Masterman Brown, “Report on the Title of
Thomas Lincoln to, and the History of, the Lincoln
Boyhood Home Along Knob Creek in LaRue County,
Kentucky” (Atlanta: National Park Service,
Southeast Regional Office, 1998), 35.

3. Benjamin H. Davis, “A Revised Report on the
Original Thomas Lincoln Nolin Creek Farm”
(Abraham Lincoin Birthplace National Historic Site,
1949, Typescript), 1-8.

National Park Service 5


Site HisTORY

FIGURE 2. Railroad flatcar loaded with the logs from the dismantled cabin, 1906.

reduced to $50,000 in committee but ultimately
no funds were forthcoming.?*

By early 1907, plans were taking shape. During the
intervening year, Guy Lowell, a Beaux-Arts
trained architect and landscape architect, and
Jules Guerin, noted artist and muralist of his day,
traveled to Hodgenville for the LFA to “survey the
ground and plan its [the birthplace’s]
development.””? Their long-term involvement in
the project is unknown, but their plans and
renderings were published in Collier’s February 9,
1907, issue. Lowell’s and Guerin’s designs were
grandiose and extended well beyond the limits of
the farm. One rendering illustrated a museum
with a facade much like that of the White House.
Another rendering illustrated a tree-lined avenue

28. Peterson, 32.
29. Collier's Weekly (February 9, 1907), 13

from the square in Hodgenville to the birthplace, a
distance of approximately three miles.°.

By the next LFA update in Collier's on February 15,
1908, Lowell’s and Guerin’s work had been
replaced with designs by John Russell Pope, a
young Beaux-Arts architect, who had been
selected in “an architectural competition.
sketches accompany the article updating the
readers on the project's status. Pope’s memorial

"Two

30. Even though Lowell and Guerin were not selected
to do the final design, it is interesting to note that
American classicism was clearly the LFA’s style of
choice. Lowell's interest in Italian gardens is clear
from his selection of structural plantings and
formal landscape arrangements and it is one that
he popularized in his book American Gardens
Pope's final design employs this same formal
landscape expression and may reflect the lasting
influence of Lowell's and Guerin’s earlier plans for
the site

National Park Service 11



SITE HisTORY

Louisville Nashville Road in 1894 was an
aggregation of log structures, the center portion
having been raised to two stories circa 1860 with
the earliest sections dating to circa 1840."

The location of the Creal house relates to the
construction of the Louisville Nashville Road.
The road ran north-south through the property
and the Creal house stood on a rise facing that
road, approximately fifteen hundred feet to the
east of the Lincoln cabin site. There is little doubt
that the Sinking Spring continued to be the main
source of drinking water for the Creals because of
its consistent flow of water. What is not known is
the exact size and location of plots cultivated by
the Creals, or the specific crops grown during
their tenure. Period photographs at the time of the
Memorial Building construction show pastures
and row crops surrounding the Creal house.
There has been no effort to document the
agricultural use of the property by the Creals
because it post-dates the Lincoln years, as well as
the lack of integrity associated with the Creal
period. There is no intent to reestablish an
agricultural presence in the Birthplace Unit.

No outside interest was paid to the property until
Abraham Lincoln’s rise to national prominence
and his election as the sixteenth president of the
United States. Even then it was minimal. As a
border state, Kentucky had mixed feelings over
the election of its native son. Lincoln himself,
when asked about his roots, gave only vague
answers and discouraged his party supporters
from using the phrase “Honest Abe, the Rail-
Splitter” or emphasizing his obscure birth in a log
cabin. Only after a bloody Civil War and his 1865
assassination was there any sustained attention
given to his humble Kentucky roots. Subsequent
reports had two primary interests: the location of
the Lincoln farm and the cabin in which Abraham
Lincoln was born.

10. Davis, “Report of Research on the Traditional
Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Cabin” (Abraham
Lincoln National Historic Site, 1949, Typescript), 23-
32.

11. Thor Borresen, “Report on the Inspection of the
Creal House” (Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National
Historic Site, 1941, Typescript), 1-4.

One of the earliest known attempts to locate and
describe the Lincoln birthplace occurred in 1865,
when John B. Rowbotham, an artist-journalist,
was sent by a Cincinnati publishing firm to “make
a picture of Lincoln’s birthplace.” He described
the site as follows:

From E.T. [Elizabethtown] proceed to
Hodgenville which is about ten miles
southeast of there—inquire the way to
Rock Spring Farm owned by Mr. R. A.
Creal better known as ‘old Dickey Creal?
The Farm is about 3 miles south of
Hodgenville [on] a good straight road. The
site of Mr. Lincoln’s birthplace is on this
farm about 500 yards from Mr. Creals
house. It is situated on a little knoll or
rising ground and is now a barley field.
Some rocks indicating the site of the
chimney are still there. At the edge of the
field are two old pear trees planted by Th.
Lincoln—between which—was a gateway
leading to the house. Mr. Creal remembers
him well. Near the spot is a very romantic
spring from which the farm takes its
name—& where no doubt Mr. Lasa child
often strayed.”

An earlier account occurred in 1860 when R. W.
‘Wintersmith claimed in a letter to J. B. McKeehan
that a “long plum stick was cut from the very place
in the house where. .. he was born. The house has
been removed.”"3

Private Commemoration
of the Lincoln Birthplace,
1894-1916

Limited interest in the Lincoln birthplace
continued as memorials to Lincoln were being
developed throughout the northern states. In the
1870s and 1880s, Lincoln enthusiasts found their
way to Hodgenville, Kentucky and would be led
to the birthplace by a dwindling number of locals
who remembered the site. One attempt to

12. Roy Hays, “Is the Lincoln Birthplace Cabin
Authentic?” The Abraham Lincoln Quarterly 5
(Sept. 1948): 128-29.

13. Peterson, 8.

National Park Service 7


SITE History

Department, whereupon the Secretary of War
proceeded to draw up regulations for the park.
These regulations provided for a resident
“custodian” whose duty was to maintain and
operate the farm. The custodian was charged with
enforcement of the “rules against private notices,
hunting, trapping, purchase, sale or use of liquor,
solicitation, or grazing of livestock."43 John A.
sell, grandson of John Creal, had served in this
equivalent position for the LFA since 1910 and was
appointed custodian by the War Department on
September 14, 1916. Richard Lloyd Jones
requested and was granted the position of
“commissioner,” and as such, was charged with
making periodic visits to the farm and submitting
status reports to the Secretary of War.

Public interest in the site grew after the
dedication, but the War Department paid little
attention to the maintenance and upkeep of the
site. The $50,000 LFA endowment funded salaries
and the limited efforts of the custodian, Cissell,
and his assistant, W.C. Ragsdale, who worked the
acreage in “tobacco and bluegrass.”# Just a
decade after the site’s designation as a national
park, Jones was expressing frustration in his
relationship with the War Department both for
lack of authorized funds to visit the site and the
inability to make necessary site improvements.

43. Peterson, 39.
44, Peterson, 42.

20 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

FIGURE 19. Memorial Plaza
under water, 1935.

The most serious problem Jones reported was
seasonal flooding that submerged the Plaza in

| feet of water, for which the only outlet was
the Sinking Spring.45 Heavy rains carried silt from
the surrounding agricultural fields into the Plaza,
which was the low spot for approximately 105
acres. As the waters slowly receded through their
only outlet—the Sinking Spring—inches of mud
were deposited on the Plaza, making the surface
impossible to maintain, and conditions for
visitors, on foot or in vehicles, untenable (Fig. 19).
In addition to the problems caused by these
floodwaters, the approach road leading to the
Plaza had never been paved, and during wet
seasons, visitors would drive their vehicles across
the fields to avoid the muddy lane.

seve!

Jones, aware of these conditions, pressed for
capital investments that were beyond the limits of
the LFA endowment. In 1926, he presented the
War Department with a proposal for
improvements totaling $50,000, based on real
estimates, for a drainage system and a dam to
relieve the flooding of the Plaza and to construct a
“road to the Memorial Building”4° No action was
authorized during Jones’s tenure because the War
Department was looking for the opportunity to
change the park’s administration.

In July of that same year, the Secretary of War
charged the Quartermaster General with the

45. Peterson, 43
46. Peterson, 42.



INTRODUCTION

Historical
Summary

Attracted to the uncultivated land west of the
Appalachians, European Americans were moving
into Kentucky by the mid-eighteenth century.
The population greatly increased when the state
of Virginia, still laying claim to its Kentucky
counties, issued 10,000 land grants to veterans of
the American Revolution to settle the area.
Thomas Lincoln came with his parents to
Kentucky around 1782 at the age of sixteen. In
1806 he married Nancy Hanks and in 1808, with
money inherited from his father, purchased a
300-acre farm located on a rise above the
“Sinking Spring,” It was here that on February 12,
1809, Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room
log cabin, Due to an unsettled debt, the Lincolns
were forced to leave Sinking Spring Farm after
only two years, leasing land at nearby Knob Creek
Farm. In 1816 the disputed property was sold at
auction, and Thomas Lincoln moved his family to
Indiana.

In 1906, the Lincoln Farm Association was formed
to take title to the 110 acres of the birthplace farm
(previously purchased in 1894 by New York
restaurateur Alfred W. Dennett) and to oversee
the development of the property as a memorial to
Abraham Lincoln. John Russell Pope’s Memorial
Building, completed in 1911, became the focal
point of a commemorative landscape of terraced
hedges enclosed by an allée of Lombardy poplars
leading to a formal plaza at the base of the
temple-form building. On July 17, 1916, an act of
Congress (39 Stat. 385) authorized the United
States to accept as a gift, a deed from the Lincoln
Farm Association which included “. .. land near
the town of Hodgenville, County LaRue, State of
Kentucky, embracing the homestead of Abraham
Lincoln and the log cabin in which he was born.”
It was stated that the land described, together with
the buildings and appurtenances thereon, “shall
be forever dedicated to the purposes of a national
park or reservation, the United States of America
agreeing to protect and preserve said lands,
buildings, and appurtenances, and especially the
log cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born
and the Memorial Hall enclosing the same”! Thus

2 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

the birthplace farm was set aside to commemorate
the sixteenth president of the United States, under
the administration of the War Department.

The War Department carried out a number of
changes to the site between 1928-1933, focusing on
improvements that would accommodate visitor
use. All of the War Department’s work was
extraneous to Pope’s design with the exception of
fill, which was added to the Plaza and the layout of
cross-axial paths and lawn as a part of that
improvement. The site was transferred to the
National Park Service (NPS) in 1933. Major NPS
alterations were based on a 1935 Planting Plan,
which used evergreens to control views to and
from the Memorial Building that had been
compromised because of changing land uses
outside the Birthplace Unit boundary.

Study Boundary

The Park consists of two units: the Birthplace Unit
and the Boyhood Home Unit. The CLR considers
the entire Birthplace Unit as part of the study area.
The area consists of approximately 116 acres,
which is divided roughly in half by U.S. 31E
(originally the Louisville-Nashville Road). Except
for a 6-acre purchase in 1949 to protect the
Boundary Oak, the Birthplace Unit’s property
represents the land owned by the Lincoin Farm
Association, purchased by the association as
Thomas Lincoln’s farm and Abraham Lincoln’s
birthplace.” The primary entrance to the western
half of the Birthplace Unit is from U.S. 31E. This
half includes the Memorial Building and the
associated Memorial Landscape, the Sinking
Spring, the historic location of the Boundary Oak,
as well as a parking ellipse and the Visitor Center.
Along the northern boundary of this western half,

1. Gloria Peterson, An Administrative History of
Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site
(Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, Division
of History, 1968), 38.

2. The Birthplace Unit occupies the southwest portion
of the original 300-acre farm that Thomas Lincoln
tried to purchase. The chain of title and
configuration of the original farm were well-
documented in two reports written by park
historian Benjamin H. Davis in 1948. See Site History
for further discussion.


TREATMENT

ultimately removed from the adjacent
woodlands.

¢ Control all invasive non-native plants such as
Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica),
English ivy (Hedera helix), and vinca in
adjacent wooded areas. Encourage and
reestablish native plants in the understory of

wooded areas (see Appendix).

Views and Vistas

The primary view is from the Memorial Plaza to
the Memorial Building. This view was reinforced
by vegetation used as architectural elements to
focus the visitor’s eyes on the Memorial Building.

¢ Reestablish vegetation to reinforce the
primary viewshed. See vegetation
recommendations above for a detailed
discussion of the planting scheme to be
reestablished in this area.

The other principal view is from the top of the

Memorial Building looking out across the park. As

noted in the history section, by the late 1920s
distant views from the Memorial Building were
compromised by commercial activities along the
property line and car parking within the park.

¢ Remove overgrown cedars that no longer
screen the adjacent property.

FIGURE 77. Plantings used to
restrict views, 1938,

*  Reestablish screen plantings to restrict views
from the Memorial Building to the zone
around the Memorial Plaza with the flagstaff
as the central element. Use the NPS 1935
Planting Plan as a guide (Fig. 77).

Small-scale Features

Benches. The War Department added the
benches along the Memorial Building Stairway
between 1928-32.

* Preserve historic benches along the Memorial
Building Stairway and Plaza.

Trash Receptacles.

¢ Limit placement and style of trash
receptacles. They should be placed no closer
than the parking area. Find a style that fits the
historic memorial setting—only use type with
multiple bins for recycling in a specific
location near the Visitor Center or in the
picnic and recreation area.

Flagpole Base.

¢ Preserve and maintain the pink granite
circular flagpole base

National Park Service 65



EXISTING CONDITIONS

FIGURE 53. The Memorial Building, 1984

impressive old-growth oak forest. Dominant oaks
include white, northern red, and black (Quercus
velutina). Major subordinates include sugar
maple, American ash, and black cherry. No rare or
endangered flora were discovered.>

Memorial Building
and Landscape

The Memorial Building measures about 50 feet by
35 feet and encloses a single chamber.
Constructed of pink Stony Creek granite and
reinforced concrete, the building is elevated about
1inch above the surrounding platform sidewalk.
The platform sidewalk is about 75 feet by 80 feet
and features several concrete benches around its
perimeter. There are also steps at the center of the
east, north, and west sides (Fig. 53).

Plaza and Flagstaff

The 200-foot-by-80-foot grassed rectangular
Plaza is oriented on a northeast by southwest axis
and is transected by exposed aggregate concrete
paths and a centrally located flagpole with a pink
granite circular base. An 8-foot-by-4-foot
coursed limestone bench is set in a 44-foot wall
and serves as the southwest Plaza boundary

(Fig. 54). A limestone and concrete stair descends
from the parking ellipse to the northeast Plaza
entrance. This 13-foot-long stair consists of two

3. Resource Management Plan, 1998, 6.

48 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

FIGURE 54. Memorial Plaza, 1994.

FIGURE 55, The Sinking Spring, 1994.

runs of twelve and thirteen steps and two coursed
limestone walls.

The Sinking Spring

The Sinking Spring lies directly south of the
Memorial Building Stairway and has coursed
limestone walls, progressively taller from the top
of the stair to the spring, creating a stair wall that
also serves as a retaining wall behind the spring.
Three runs of eight flagstone steps descend to a
flagstone platform, which encircles the spring
pool, approximately six to eight feet below

(Fig. 55). Two drain pipes are located in this
sinkhole and are connected to storm drain pipes
under the plaza. Two stone benches are affixed to
the south wall at the platform level.



43

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The Boundary Oak, 1959.

The Visitor Center, 1959.

The Boundary Oak, undated.

Historic Base Map - West.

Historic Base Map - East.

Location map, 1999.

Parking ellipse, 2003.

Boardwalk through wooded area, 1996.

Lack of screening for the Nancy Lincoln Inn, 2001.
Red cedar allée, 2003.

The Memorial Building, 1984.

Memorial Plaza, 1994.

The Sinking Spring, 1994.

Historic location of the Boundary Oak, 1994.

Picnic area, 2003.

Maintenance complex, 1996.

Park housing, 2001.

Existing Conditions Map - West.

Existing Conditions Map - East.

Memorial Building Landscape, 1938.

Memorial Building Landscape under construction, c. 1910.
Memorial Building Landscape after planting of red cedars, 1935.
View down Memorial Stairway, 2003.

Steps leading down from parking ellipse, 2001
Hedges along Memorial Building Stairway, undated.
Aerial photograph showing increased vegetation, 1990s.
Memorial Building Landscape, c. 1920.

Memorial Building Landscape, 2001.

Asphalt walk at the rear of the Visitor Center, 2003.
Walkway to the Nancy Lincoln Inn, 2003.

Stone edgings near the Sinking Spring, 2003.

Steps on the west side of the Visitor Center, 2003.
Loss of lower growth on red cedars, 2003.

Memorial Building Landscape showing original hedge configuration, 1928.

Plantings used to restrict views, 1938.

Cast concrete drinking fountain, 2003.

Portion of sixteen acres currently being mowed weekly, 2003.
Redbuds planted along U.S. 31E, 2003.

Treatment Map - West.

Treatment Map - East.

viii Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoin Birthplace Unit

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n



FIGURE 12. Dedication photo showing mature plant
material along Memorial Stairway, 1911

Rome.3? The multi-tiered evergreen hedge
planting echoed the Memorial Building facade’s
fine details of massing and line. The period
photographs document sizeable trees (at least
fourteen feet tall) and fully formed shrub
plantings in place for the dedication. It is evident
by the refinement of height and massing of the
hedges that a considerable sum was spent to
obtain mature plant material. Gaps, which are
typical between new plantings, are not evident in
the period photographs, and it is clear by the
evenly pruned lines of the hedges that some level
of management was already occurring at the site
Without additional information, it is assumed that
the material of the landings was gravel, and that
the lawn panels were planted in Kentucky
bluegrass.4° (Fig. 12)

Plaza and Flagstaff. The Plaza was completed as
Pope planned at least as far as the drawings
illustrate and period photographs document. It is
clear that the taller hedge planting, which extends
beyond the camera’s field of view, enclosed the
entire Plaza as Pope’s rendering suggests it should,
even to the detail of the reverse-
the base of the Memorial Stairway. The back edge,
however, appears to be rectilinear. The material of
the Plaza appears to be gravel, from which an
elegantly detailed, white, cast-metal flagstaff
emerges. The height of the flagstaff is not known,

adius corners at

39. Michael Dirr, Manual of Woody Landscape Plants
(Champaign, Il.: Stipes Publishing, 1990), 638.

40. A 1928 War Department report indicated that the
landings were gravel and the Plaza crushed stone

Site History

FIGURE 13. Dedication photo showing Memorial
Plaza, 1911

FIGURE 14. Memorial Building Landscape with benches, c
1920.

but it is tall enough for the flag to be out of view
The flagstaff is central to the Plaza and on axis
with the center of the Memorial Building. Unlike
Pope’s rendering, however, which depicted a
modest square base, the flagstaff base as installed
was a pink granite ring, the material matching the
Memorial Building and Stairway. It was
approximately twelve inches tall and five feet in
diameter (Fig. 13)

Small-scale Features of the Memorial

Landscape. Very few small-scale features are
apparent in either Pope’s rendering or in the
dedication photographs. The Pope rendering
illustrates half-circular benches, which fit the arc
formed by the hedges at the base of the steps, and
while they do not appear in any of the dedication
photographs, they do appear in a promotional
photograph taken by Stoney Creek Granite

(Fig. 14)

National Park Service 17


ANALYSIS

2 ED RRS rte,

FIGURE 64. Memorial Building Landscape after planting of
red cedars, 1935

limbs on their lower trunk, therefore causing the
allée to lose its sense of enclosure. As time
progresses and the remaining cedars continue to
decline, the original design intent will be lost. As
the major character-defining vegetative feature in
the landscape, the allée’s existence is essential in
preserving the park’s landscape. The allée is the
one vegetative feature common to both the 1911
and the 1930s landscape.

NPS changes during the Mission 66 development
had more effect on the War Department efforts
than on the Pope design. It does not appear that
the Mission 66 visitor center qualifies for
architectural significance.

Overall, the landscape exhibits a high degree of
design integrity

Setting

It was the conscious choice of the LFA to
memorialize the Lincoln birthplace and not to
restore the cabin in its historical setting in the
fashion of Mount Vernon or Monticello.
Although not documented by the LFA or Pope, it
would seem by the early sketches of the site, and
the final decision to locate and orient the
Memorial Building and Landscape in its present
location, that the intent was to include the larger
agricultural context as part of the setting.
However, the agrarian setting of the early
Memorial has been continually compromised
over the years by construction and plantings that
obscure views out and views in. To counter the
effects of nearby development, the NPS chose to

FIGURE 65. View down Memorial Stairway, 2003.

use vegetation to screen the Memorial from
unwanted views and focus the visitor’s attention
on the Memorial Building itself (Fig. 64).

While the immediate setting created by the
Memorial Landscape retains a high degree of
integrity, the larger agricultural setting, which the
views to and from the Memorial Building were to
take advantage of, has been lost. Adding more
trees and shrubs to the landscape around the
Visitor Center has further reduced the integrity of
the agricultural setting.

Materials

The hard materials associated with the original
Pope design are for the most part intact. The pink
granite on the Memorial Building that is repeated

in the steps and cheek walls is in good condition.
Original materials were replaced in a couple of
instances. One instance is the replacement of the
pea gravel landings along the Memorial Building
Stairway with exposed aggregate concrete by the
NPS circa 1956 (Fig. 65). The War Department
replaced the gravel Memorial Plaza with grass and
stone paths when the construction of the parking
ellipse in 1929 allowed for the removal of
automobiles from the Plaza. At some later date,
the original ornamental flagstaff was replaced
with a sleek, more contemporary design,
diminishing the quality of the Pope landscape.

The materials of the extant War Department
development suffered greater change. In 1984, the
NPS replaced the axial stone paths in the Plaza
with exposed aggregate concrete. Stone stairs

National Park Service 57



ANALYSIS

FIGURE 68. Aerial photograph showing increased vegetation, 1990s.

president. The country’s long attachment to
humble beginnings and “obscurity to fame”
stories have their roots in the Lincoln Birthplace
Memorial.

Summary

The Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Memorial
Building was completed in 1911, and the landscape
design was developed through two phases
beginning shortly after the Memorial’s
completion. The site’s surrounding landscape was
designed to provide a setting for the Memorial
Building and incorporate remaining historic
features such as the Boundary Oak and Sinking
Spring. The landscape plan existing today is

primarily the result of that NPS planting plan
implemented in 1935 and completed in 1938.

The original planting in 191 consisted primarily of
a formal allée and hedge leading from the main
Plaza along the Memorial Stairway to the
Memorial Building. The original allée was a
columnar deciduous tree, which provided a
vegetative ‘container’ leading visitors, visually and
physically, up the steps to the Memorial. The
hedge along the allée was a formally sheared
shrub, which added to the monumentality of the
design (Fig. 69).

A second, more comprehensive planting plan was
initiated in the 1930s by the NPS. As part of the
NPS plan, the deciduous allée was replaced with
red cedar. Although a coniferous tree, the red

National Park Service 59



ANALYSIS

FIGURE 69. Memorial Building Landscape, c. 1920

cedar provided a design effect similar to the
original deciduous trees. Today, due to the age of
the red cedars in the allée and the loss of several of
the trees, the original intent of leading visitors to
the Memorial has been lost. The few cedars that

60 Cultural pe Report: Abraham Birthplace Unit

FIGURE 70. Memorial Building Landscape, 2001

do remain from the allée have lost their columnar
shape because of their age. The existing privet
hedge remains in good condition, although its

arrangement is slightly altered (Fig. 70


SITE History

FIGURE 6. Construction of the Memorial Building Stairway, c. 1910

According to Steven McLeod Bedford, a Pope
scholar, despite the project's reduction in size “the
entire ensemble created a properly masculine and
sacred image that was entirely appropriate to early
twentieth-century conceptions of Lincoln’s
boyhood.”3°

The park’s collection contains eleven prints by
Pope’s office dated October 1908 that detail the
Memorial Building, Stairway, and a partial view of
the Plaza with the central flagstaff.37 An LFA
report, published January 1910, documents the site
construction as being well underway by the
Norcross Brothers of Massachusetts after a winter

35. Peterson, 31

36. Steven M.Bedford, John Russell Pope: Architect of
Empire (New York: Rizzoli, 1998), 122

37. John Russell Pope, “Memorial Building Lincoln
Farm,” 1908. See microfilm 338/25900, National
Park Service, Southeast Regional Office, Atlanta

14 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoin Birthplace Unit

of “preliminary landscape work that was
considered necessary. . . on the farm itself and the
terrace on which the building stands”"38 A
concrete foundation for the building and steps
was poured soon after, and the Memorial
Building, Stairway, cheek walls, and the base of
the flagstaff took shape out of Stony Creek pink
granite. As completed in 1911, the Memorial
Building—sited atop the knoll above Sinking
Spring—was the focal point of the park. Although
detailed site development plans have not been
uncovered, period photographs document that
the Memorial Building, as well as a formal
landscape with a monumental stair and formal

38. “Report of the Chairman of the Executive
Committee to Honorary Members of The Lincoin
Farm Association Concerning the Progress of the
Memorial Building” (New York: 1910), 1
photocopied


Preparing a Record of Treatment

Purpose

As both a follow-up to the CLR’s
recommendations and as a reference for future
historic research, the park should maintain an
accurate record of treatment to document the
intent, extent, time, and cost of all implemented
treatments. This record should describe the as-
built physical work, including any modifications
between the proposed and actual treatments.
Systematic documentation is important whether
treatment is implemented over an extended
period of time or in short discrete phases. The
record should document specific treatment
actions, not routine preservation maintenance,
unless maintenance is altered specifically as a
result of the treatment recommendations.

Contents and
Format

The record of treatment should include copies of
field reports, condition assessments, and any
contract summaries. Documentation may follow a
variety of formats, including as-built construction
drawings, plans, details, narrative descriptions,
“before” and “after” photographs, and even
videos. The Section 106 compliance
documentation developed to review and approve
recommended treatment actions may, in some
cases, be sufficient as the record of treatment.

When treatment recommendations are not
implemented immediately following the
preparation of the CLR, the record of treatment
should also describe any changes that have
occurred to the existing condition of the
landscape prior to treatment. The record of
treatment may be produced as an appendix or
addendum to the CLR and designated as “Part
Three: Record of Treatment.”

Reference
Materials

The “Landscape Lines” section of A Guide to
Cultural Landscape Reports (1999) explains and
provides technical guidance on various landscape
survey, research, and treatment techniques that
may be employed in preparing a record of
treatment. All parks should have received a copy
of the guide during the spring of 1999. Additional
copies of the guide are available for purchase from
the Superintendent of Documents, Government
Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402-9325,
Stock No. 0245-005-01187-1.

Another useful reference is the Olmsted Center
for Landscape Preservation’s Guide to Developing
a Preservation Maintenance Plan for a Historic
Landscape (1998), especially the summary,
inspection, and inventory forms provided in
Appendix F (p. 62), which could easily be adapted
for use in compiling a record of treatment. This
publication is included as an appendix to the
Guide to Cultural Landscape Reports sent to each
park. (For additional information regarding this
publication, visit the Olmsted Center’s web site at
http://www.nps.gov/frla/oclp.htm.)

Guidelines and standardized forms for preparing
a record of treatment will eventually be accessible
for park use on the SERO-CRS intranet site,
located at http://crs.sero.nps.gov.

National Park Service 73



Contents

Figures

Figure Credits
Foreword
Acknowledgments

Introduction
Management Summary
Historical Summary
Study Boundary
Scope of Work and Methodology
Summary

Site History
Thomas Lincoln-Sinking Spring Farm, 1808-1816
Continued Agricultural Use, 1816-1894
Private Commemoration of the Lincoln Birthplace, 1894-1916
Abraham Lincoln National Park, 1916-Present

Existing Conditions
Location
Topography
Spatial Organization
Circulation
Views and Vistas
Vegetation
Memorial Building and Landscape
Plaza and Flagstaff
The Sinking Spring
The Boundary Oak
Visitor Center
Picnic and Recreation Area
Maintenance Complex / Park Housing
Small-scale Features
Summary

Analysis
Period of Significance
Evaluation of Integrity
Summary

Treatment Recommendations
Memorial Landscape

Preparing a Record of Treatment

Purpose
Contents and Format
Reference Materials

Selected Bibliography
Appendix

vii

xi
xiii

BWNN=

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75
77

National Park Service v



iv Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit



INTRODUCTION

park housing and maintenance facilities have been
developed.

These memorial resources and uses are in contrast
to the development of the eastern half of the
Birthplace Unit, which is primarily developed for
recreational use. Facilities include picnic tables
and a shelter, restroom facilities, walking trails,
and parking. Because of the width of the highway
and the volume of traffic, there is no
accommodation for a pedestrian crossing
between the two areas, and very little visual
connection is available because of the rolling
topography, as well as the width and plantings
associated with the highway.

The larger setting of the Birthplace Unit is that
portion of rural Kentucky that lies in the eastern
portion of the Pennyrile3 This Mississippian
plateau stretches from the Land Between the
Lakes to the Pottsville Escarpment and includes a
large karst region. It is characterized by
underground streams and caves, sinkholes, small
ponds, long valleys and rolling hills with
occasional steep escarpments, which are formed
by the dissolution of soluble limestone by water
action. The most notable natural feature of the
area is Mammoth Cave, the world’s longest.4
Thirty miles to the north, the Birthplace Unit
contains the Sinking Spring, a steady stream of
water that seeps from the base of a small knoll
over a rock ledge down into a sinkhole. Thomas
Lincoln’s farm was named for the spring, and oral
history places the birth cabin atop the knoll, the
site of the present-day Memorial Building.

The Birthplace Unit’s vegetation and associated
management falls into three categories:
hardwood-dominant woodland essentially
unmanaged except for the removal of dead and
dangerous trees; turf grass mown regularly to
maintain open space; and formal ornamental
plantings of trees and shrubs that require regular
maintenance. The latter is associated with the
Memorial Landscape and primarily dates to a1935

3. The term Pennyrile is derived from the common
plant name Pennyroyal (Hoed puligrodes).

4. Mammoth Cave is included in Mammoth Cave
National Park. More than 350 miles of the cave
have been mapped.

Planting Plan of evergreens installed to control
views to and from the Memorial Building. Since
the 1970s, the Birthplace Unit has pursued a
“beautification” program, which has resulted in
numerous specimen-tree plantings in the vicinity
of the Visitor Center.

Scope of Work and
Methodology

In addition to the CLR, a historic structure report
(HSR) for the Memorial Building and Cabin’, as
well as a historic resource study (HRS)° for the
Birthplace Unit, were published in 2001. In the
former document, the Memorial Building and
Cabin are addressed in detail and in the latter the
historical context of the Birthplace Unit and its
primary resources is covered. Therefore, the CLR
will not attempt to duplicate the work of either of
these documents. Rather, the CLR’s focus is to
evaluate the significance of the existing Memorial
Landscape, which is concentrated on the western
half of the property, and to provide treatment
recommendations to preserve its characteristic
features. The development on the eastern half of
the property will be presented, but, having no
effect on the Memorial Landscape, will not be
evaluated for its significance.

In light of these stated goals, the CLR will not
exhaustively research or describe the Sinking
Spring Farm or the subsequent agricultural use of
the property by the Creal family for two reasons:
1) the lack of available documentation associated
with Thomas Lincoln's development and use of
the property; and 2) the lack of integrity
associated with these periods. The cultural
landscape report will not attempt to illustrate
what the landscape looked like during this period
(1808-1894). The most important fact from the
Thomas Lincoln period is that the Birthplace Unit
is composed of a portion of the original Lincoln

5. Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Memorial Building
Historic Structure Report (Atlanta: National Park
Service, Southeast Regional Office, 2001),

6. Robert W. Blythe, Abraham Lincoin Birthplace
National Historic Site: Historic Resources Study
(Atlanta: National Park Service, Southeast Regional
Office, 2001).

National Park Service 3


Figures

OIANAWN =

PPRWWWWWWNWWWWNnNNNNNN Noeomwsnosnnin win
N>SOOONHABWNASESYARREGONNSSRSGARESSrSY

View of the Sinking Spring Farm, 1895

Railroad flatcar loaded with the logs from the dismantled cabin, 1906.
Pope's plan for a Lincoln Birthplace Memorial, 1908.

Lincoln cabin re-erected on site for the centennial celebration, 1909
Centennial celebration, 1909.

Construction of the Memorial Building Stairway, c. 1910.

Construction shot showing agricultural setting of the site, c. 1910.
Memorial Building and Stairway, 1924.

Memorial Building Foundation with view of crops planted near the Creal house, c. 1910.

Granite entry markers, undated.

View back to Memorial Building from Jackson Highway, 1928.
Dedication photo showing mature plant material along Memorial Stairway, 1911.
Dedication photo showing Memorial Plaza, 1911.

Memorial Building Landscape with benches, c. 1920.

View of the Sinking Spring, 1890s.

The Boundary Oak, 1919.

The entrance road and park landscape beyond, 1928.

Memorial Building Landscape, 1913.

Memorial Plaza under water, 1935.

View of Memorial Plaza with cultivated fields in the background, 1928.
Picturesque nature of the Sinking Spring, 1928.

View of Memorial Plaza, 1928.

Lincoln Farm National Monument - Reservation Map, 1932.

View of parking ellipse, 1930s.

View of entrance, 1934.

Aerial photo showing proximity of Nancy Lincoln Inn, 1938.

Lincoln Memorial Building Landscape after War Department improvements, 1932.

Closeup of Memorial Plaza, 1928.

New entrance features, 1930s.

The Sinking Spring, 1938.

The Boundary Oak, 1938.

The Creal house, 1928.

Rustic picnic pavilion and restroom facility, 1938.

Planting Plan Approach Area [detail of larger plan], 1935.

Screening of Nancy Lincoln inn from parking ellipse, 1935.

Memorial Building Landscape after planting of red cedars, 1935.

Red cedar allée framing the approach to the Memorial Building, 1935.
Deciduous trees planted outside the formal landscape, 1935.

The Creal house, 1938.

Superindentent's residence, 1996.

Visitor Center Floor Plan and Elevation, 1958.

Aerial photograph, 1959 (note change in vegetation from Figure 26).

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National Park Service vii


Selected Bibliography

Published Materials

The Architecture of John Russell Pope. 3 vols. with an
introductory text by Royal Cortissoz. New York:
William Helburn Inc., 1924-1930.

Beveridge, Albert J. Abraham Lincoln: 1809-1858, 4 vols.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1928.

Bedford, Stephen M. John Russel! Pope: Architect of
Empire. New York: Rizzoli, 1998.

Bullard, F. Lauriston. Lincoln in Marble and Bronze. New
Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1952.

Chafee, Richard. "John Russell Pope.” In Macmillan
Encyclopedia of Architects. Vol. 3. New York: Free
Press, 1982.

Drexler, Arthur, ed. The Architecture of the Ecole des
Beaux-Arts. New York: Museum of Modern Art,
1977.

Federal Writers' Project. Kentucky: A Guide to the
Bluegrass State. American Guide Series. Sponsored
by the University of Kentucky and the Works
Projects Administration. New York: Harcourt,
Brace and Company, 1939.

Ferris, Robert G., ed. The Presidents: Historic Places
Commemorating the Chief Executives of the United
States. Washington, D,C.: National Park Service,
1976.

Grossman, Elizabeth G. "Architecture for a Public
Client: The Monuments and Chapels of the
American Battle Monuments Commission."
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 43
(May 1984): 119-43.

Hampton, William Judson. Presidential Shrines from
Washington to Coolidge. Boston: Christopher
Publishing House, 1928.

Hosmer, Jr., Charles B. Presence of the Past: A History of
the Preservation Movement in the United States Before
Williamsburg. New York: G. P, Putnam's Sons, 1965.

Lowry, Bates. Building a National Image: Architectural
Drawings for the American Democracy, 1789-1912
Washington, D.C.: National Building Museum,
1985.

Newton, Norman T. Design on the Land: The
Development of Landscape Architecture. Cambridge,
Mass.; Harvard University Press, 1971.

Oates, Stephen B. Abraham Lincoln: The Man Behind the
Myths, New York: Harper & Row, 1984.

Oates, Stephen B. With Malice Toward None: The Life of
Abraham Lincoln, New York: Harper & Row, 1977.

Tarbell, Ida M. In the Footsteps of Lincoln. New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1924.

Warren, Louis A. Lincoln's Parentage and Childhood.
New York: Century Co., 1926.

Weslager, C. A. The Log Cabin in American History. New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1969.

Wiebe, Robert H. The Search for Order, 1877-1920. New
York: Hill & Wang, 1967.

NPS Publications

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Memorial Building Historic
Structure Report. Atlanta: National Park Service,
Southeast Regional Office, 2001.

Blythe, Robert W., Maureen Carroll, and Steven H.
Moffson. Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National
Historic Site Historic Resource Study. Atlanta:
National Park Service, Southeast Regional Office,
2001.

Borrensen, Thor. “Report on the Inspection of the
Creal House” Typescript. Abraham Lincoln
National Historic Park, 1941.

Brown, Kent Masterson. “Report on the Title of
Thomas Lincoln to, and the History of, the Lincoln
Boyhood Home Along Knob Creek in LaRue
County, Kentucky.” Atlanta: National Park Service,
Southeast Regional Office, 1998,

Davis, Benjamin. "A Report on the Abraham Lincoln
Traditional Birthplace Cabin." Typescript.
Abraham Lincoln National Historic Park, May 16,
1948.

Davis, Benjamin. “A Revised Report on the Original
Thomas Lincoln Nolin Creek Farm.” Typescript.
Abraham Lincoln National Historic Park, 1949.

Davis, Benjamin. "Comments on Statements Made by
Dr. L. A. Warren Concerning the Traditional
Lincoln Birthplace Cabin." Typescript. Abraham
Lincoln National Historic Park, October 7, 1950.

National Park Service 75



78 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit



SiTE HISTORY

FIGURE 1. View of the Sinking Spring Farm, 189!

At the same time, Dennett attempted to sell the
property to the United States Government.?°
Repeated efforts failed throughout the late 1890s,
and in 1899, Dennett conveyed the property for an
undisclosed amount to his associate David Crear,
to whom he owed debts. In 1900, Dennett
personally went to Washington twice but to no
avail. He wrote to Bigham that “nobody but

God Almighty, in my opinion can sell that
property. ...”*! With debts mounting, Dennett
filed for bankruptcy in 1901, and the Lincoln farm
was not listed among his properties at that time. In
1903, Crear filed suit in court to defend the title he
claimed after Dennett's final discharge. In 1905,
the LaRue County Circuit Court ruled Dennett’s
conveyance to Crear fraudulent, and the farm was
put up for sale with the proceeds to be distributed
among Dennett’s creditors.

20. Peterson, 15.
21. Peterson, 17.

The Lincoln Farm Association

By 1905, interest in the Lincoln birthplace had
grown, and the auction of the property received
considerable attention from the press. The
Louisville Courier-Journal reported on the
condition of the farm as having “a decidedly run-
down and neglected appearance.” Portions of the
fields were being invaded by young saplings, and
“fences were so dilapidated that they scarcely
afford[ed] sufficient protection to the few
scattered patches of corn and tobacco which are
to be found.”** The 1895 Evans photograph was
reproduced with this article with some later
photographs of the site after the cabin had been
removed. A large flagpole marks the spot of the
dismantled cabin location in one of these
photographs.

Thomas B. Kirkpatrick, the local postmaster, had
taken an interest in the fate of the birthplace. He
communicated with William Jennings Bryan,
political evangelist and Democratic presidential

22. Peterson, 20.

National Park Service 9


U.S. Department of the Interior

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site
Hodgenville, Kentucky

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit
Cultural Landscape Report

Cultural Resources
Southeast Region


The National Park Service cares for special places
saved by the American people so that all may
experience our heritage.



yup ase)dyaig ujooun weyeiqy :yodsy adeospuer fesmyin> ze

FIGURE 34, Planting Plan Approach Area [detail of larger plan], 1935.

FARMING

A¥OLSIH 3LIS



x Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit


Figure Credits

Figures 1-2: adapted from Peterson pl. I, IV; Figure 3: adapted from Collier's Weekly 40 (February
15, 1908); Figures 4-7: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site (ABLI) archives; Figure 8:
adapted from Ida Tarbell, In the Footsteps of the Lincolns; Figures 9-10: ABLI archives; Figure 11:
adapted from “Report of the Lincoln Farm and Memorial"; Figures 12-16: ABLI archives; Figure
17: adapted from "Report of the Lincoln Farm and Memorial"; Figure 18: The Filson Historical
Society, Louisville, KY; Figures 19-20: ABLI archives; Figure 21: The Filson Historical Society,
Louisville, KY; Figure 22: adapted from "Report of the Lincoln Farm and Memorial"; Figure 23:
Denver Service Center (DSC) Technical Information Center (TIC) 338/9009; Figure 24: ABLI
archives; Figure 25: adapted from Peterson pl. XII; Figure 26: ABLI archives; Figure 27: The Filson
Historical Society, Louisville, KY; Figure 28: adapted from Peterson pl. XIll; Figures 29-31: ABLI
archives; Figure 32: adapted from "Report of the Lincoln Farm and Memorial"; Figure 33: ABLI
archives; Figure 34: DSC TIC 228/1050A; Figures 35-40: ABLI archives; Figure 41: DSC TIC 338/3009;
Figures 42-45: ABLI archives; Figures 46-47: David Hasty, Southeast Regional Office (SERO); Figure
48: National Park Service (NPS); Figures 49-52: SERO; Figure 53: Historic American Building Survey
(HABS); Figures 54-59: SERO; Figures 60-61: David Hasty, SERO; Figures 62-64: ABLI archives;
Figures 65-66: SERO; Figures 67-69: ABLI archives; Figures 70-75: SERO; Figure 76: The Filson
Historical Society, Louisville, KY; Figure 77: ABLI archives; Figures 78-80: SERO; Figures 81-82:
David Hasty, SERO.

National Park Service ix


FIGURE 52. Red cedar allée, 2003

Vegetation

While the mature cedars continue to provide a
vegetated edge, they lack the intended formality of
the Lombardy poplars or the cedars when first
planted. Today, twenty-three cedars are extant
within the allée along the Memorial Stairway
These trees represent approximately one-half of
the original red cedar allée (Fig. 52)

Since the planting of the first trees in the parking
island across from the Visitor Center as part of the
Mission 66 plans, more trees and shrubs have
been added to the park landscape. While
beautification of the Birthplace Unit is one goal,
another is to plant trees that are indigenous to
Kentucky. Lawn areas around the Visitor Center
and around the recreation area (approximately
thirty-six acres) are mowed on a weekly basis
during the growing season to give a manicured
appearance. Sodding, seeding, and fertilization
are performed annually

A plant inventory, “The Flora and Vegetation of
Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic
Site,” was completed in 1993 by Landon E

EXISTING CONDITIONS

McKinney, botanist with the Kentucky State
Nature Preserve Commission. At the southern
end of the site’s boundary bordering U. S. 31E on
the eastern side lies approximately fifteen acres of
an early successional field. This field is being
invaded by woody pioneering species, such as
eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), winged
sumac (Rhus copallinum), black cherry (Prunus
serotina), and black locust (Robinia pseudo-
acacia). Along the western boundary of the site
west of U. S. 31E lies approximately thirteen acres
of an eastern red cedar-dominated forest. There
is also a small patch of red cedar forest east of U.S.
31E adjacent to the northern end of the picnic
grounds. The majority of the wooded acreage,
approximately forty-three acres, on both sides of
U.S. 31E may be classified as an American ash
(Fraxinus americana)/sugar maple (Acer
saccharum) association. Subordinate species that
may seem to dominate in sporadic patches include
tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), black
cherry, white and red oak (Quercus alba and Q.
rubra), and bitternut hickory (Carya cordiformis)
Flowering dogwood is common in the understory
The extreme northeastern section of the site,
covering approximately nine acres, is an

National Park Service 47


SITE HISTORY

made in the park’s administrative history of 1968
or in War Department records available at the
park, However, it is clear from period
photographs that the Lombardy poplars, which
flanked the Memorial Building Stairway, were
replaced with younger specimens at about this
time. It is worth noting that Lombardy poplars
are susceptible to canker diseases and are often
short-lived. This could account for the need to
replace the original trees so soon after their initial
planting. Neither the 1932 plan nor the undated
plans document a line of trees in association with
the hedges outside the Memorial Building
Stairway. Also at this time, period photographs
document that the multi-tiered hedges on either
side of the Memorial Building Stairway were
simplified into a single rectangle at one height.
Simplification of the hedge may have resulted
from either lack of staff to keep the hedges
trimmed as designed or lack of training on how to
care for this sophisticated planting (Fig. 27).

Plaza and Flagstaff. The Plaza, in addition to
being trenched for an underground drainage
system, was modified for pedestrian use. With the
improvement of the approach road and
construction of the parking ellipse, automobiles
were no longer able to enter the Plaza. Therefore,
what had been a broad gravel surface to
accommodate this use was put into grass, with
formal stone walks established on cross axis with
the flagstaff. The stone walkways met at a stone
paved circle that ringed the flagstaff. A two-foot-
wide grass ring was maintained between the
flagstaff base and the walkway (Fig. 28).

In addition to the walkways’ construction, the
undated plans document the removal of a section
of hedge and the construction of a 50-foot stone
wall with an integral stone seat as the central
feature. This wall was centered on the flagstaff
and Memorial Building at the termination of the
south-running walkway.

Although not detailed in plans or documentation,
it must also have been under War Department
direction that the grade of the Plaza was raised
sufficiently to eliminate the twelve-inch
difference between the pink granite base of the
flagstaff and the surrounding Plaza. It is recorded

28 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

that successive flood events left silt deposits in the
Plaza, which could have raised the grade
regardless, But with the underground drainage
system installation, as well as grading to correct
surface drainage problems and grassing, the
overall Plaza level was raised ten to twelve inches.

Small-scale Features. The undated plans
document the addition of twelve, six-foot
benches in the Memorial Landscape. Four—one
at each corner—placed at the Memorial Building
Terrace level, two—facing each other—on each of
the stair landings, and two—at the base of the
Stairway in the front corners of the Plaza. Also at
this time, Peterson records that the park obtained
“2,500 old rails” from Fort Knox, which were “set
up around those sections of the park visible from
the highway, the approach road, and the plaza”®
Period photographs illustrate an eight-rail snake
fence with a two-rail vertical cross support. A
small wood entrance sign elevated on a wooden
post was placed in the center of the planted island

(Fig. 29).

Flood Control. Soon after construction it was
obvious that the Plaza was the low point for a
considerable drainage area, and controlling the
seasonal floodwaters that submerged the Plaza
affected the layout and design of all other features
proposed by the War Department. The range of
rejected solutions demonstrates the severity of the
problem. Proposed solutions included diverting
water to adjoining properties before it reached the
farm, or impounding the water on the adjoining
Nancy Lincoln Inn property. Both were rejected
because of the “difficult political problems that
would arise.” Other potential solutions, such as
pumping the water to the next watershed, creating
a reservoir, or elevating the Plaza, were
determined inadequate or too expensive. Finally,
it was determined that a system of underground
channels that increased the capacity to drain the
Plaza was the most flexible solution. The resulting
grid of underground piping was fed by a series of
catch basins located throughout the Plaza area, as
well as one at the low point in the parking ellipse.
The piping directed water to one of two storage
locations: a new retention area that was

61, Peterson, 50.


Davis, Benjamin. “Deeds Showing Richard Creal’s
Ownership” Typescript. Abraham Lincoln
National Historic Park, 1948.

Davis, Benjamin. "Report of Research on the
Traditional Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Cabin."
‘Typescript. Abraham Lincoln National Historic
Park, February 15, 1949.

Davis, Benjamin. “Report on the Original Thomas
Lincoln Nolin Creek Farm.” Typescript. Abraham
Lincoln National Historic Park, 1948.

Peterson, Gloria. An Administrative History of Abraham
Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site.
Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, Division
of History, 1968.

“Statement for Management, Abraham Lincoln
Birthplace National Historic Site." Typescript.
National Park Service, Hodgenville, Kentucky,
April 25, 1989

Periodicals

Croly, Herbert. "The Recent Works of John Russell
Pope." The Architectural Record 29 (June 191): 441-
509.

Hays, Roy. “Is the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Cabin
Authentic?" The Abraham Lincoin Quarterly 5
(September 1948): 127-63.

Jones, Richard Lloyd. “The Lincoln Birthplace Farm."
Collier's Weekly 36 (February 10, 1906): 12-20.

Jones, Richard Lloyd. "The Lincoln Centenary.”
Collier's Weekly 40 (February 15, 1908): 12-3.

"The Lincoln Birthplace Farm." Collier's Weekly 38
(February 7, 1907): 16-17

76 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

"The Lincoln Centennial Celebration." American
Review of Reviews 39 (February 1909): 172-73-
"The Lincoln Memorial: The Man and the
Monument." The Crafisman 26 (April 1914): 16-20.
Mechlin, Leila. "The Proposed Lincoln Memorial.”
Century Magazine 83 (January 1912): 368-76.
Pitcaithley, Dwight T. "A Splendid Hoax: The Strange
Case of Abraham Lincoln's Birthplace Cabin."
Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the
Organization of American Historians, 1991.

"The Proposed Lincoln Memorial." Harper's Weekly 56
(January 20, 1912): 21.

Purvis, Thomas L. "The Making of a Myth: Abraham
Lincoln's Family Background in the Perspective of
Jacksonian Politics." Journal of the Illinois State
Historical Society 75:2 (Summer 1982).

Thomason, Philip. "LaRue County Multiple Resource
Area." Draft National Register Multiple Property
Documentation Form, Kentucky Heritage Council,
November 19, 1990.

“What Shall the Lincoln Memorial Be?" American
Review of Reviews 38 (September 1908): 334-42.

Archival Material

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site.
Plans, drawings, photoghraphs, Superintendents’
Reports, correspondence, and unpublished reports
in park files.

National Archives. Plans and drawings of Abraham
Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site. Record
Group 79.

National Park Service, Southeast Regional Office.
Microfiched plans and drawings of Abraham
Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site.


Site History

FIGURE 9. Memorial Building Foundation with view of crops planted near the Creal house, c. 1910.

illustrated a clear view back to the Memorial
Building from the Jackson Highway, similar to the
McClure’s Magazine photograph (Fig. 1). Once
the trees matured, this view would only have been
possible in winter when the leaves were off the
trees, and then screened partially by branches. It
is hard to know whether this was a conscious
arrangement, but it is interesting to note that the
view from the highway would have been possible
on Lincoln’s birthday, February 12.

Memorial Building and Landscape. All records
seem to indicate that the architect exercised full
control in the design and execution of the
Memorial Building and Landscape. The
Memorial Building and its immediate setting was
the centerpiece of the park’s development. Once
in the Plaza, the formal lines led the visitor
through a series of planned experiences climaxing
at the Birth Cabin, which occupied the interior of
the Memorial Building. To create the perfect
setting, the ground outside the Memorial Stairway
was carefully terraced to echo the slope and
location of the steps, with the grade flattening
alongside the granite-edged landings. This site
planning technique reflected the formality of the

FIGURE 10. Granite entry markers, undated.

FIGURE 11. View back to Memorial Building from Jackson
Highway, 1928. Memorial Building and imposed it on the

landscape. The planting, both in the selection and
the placement of vegetation, was used to reinforce
this formality and architectural features of the
structures. The Lombardy poplar, which was
planted either side of the stairway, was typically

however, that there was consideration given to
what could be seen from the Memorial Building.
The formal plantings would have focused the
viewer's eye on an unimpeded vista of agricultural
fields beyond the limits of the park. A second vista
was evident in period photographs, which

used in classical landscapes because its columnar
habit echoed the classical cypress trees of ancient

16 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit


on the Governmental controlled property.” The
existing conditions photographs in the report
document a Memorial Building Landscape minus
the Lombardy poplars. It is not clear when or why
these trees were removed, but the NPS intended
to use cedars “to frame the approach walk and
view toward the Memorial Building as seen from
the Memorial Plaza” in much the same way the
poplars were used.®* A single row of eastern red
cedars (Juniperus virginiana) with a ten-foot base
spread and twenty-foot height were planted
parallel to the Memorial Stairway from the
Memorial Plaza at the bottom leading up to the
Memorial Terrace around the building at the top
(Fig. 37). In addition, collected red cedars with a
twenty-foot base spread and thirty-foot height
were grouped to give an evergreen background
and skyline effect immediately behind the
Memorial Building.

In addition to the evergreen planting immediately
around the Memorial Building, some large
deciduous trees were planted to improve the
wooded areas just outside the formal landscape
and along the walk from the parking ellipse to the
Plaza (Fig. 38)

These plans suggest, and the report photographs
support, a theory that the second planting of
Lombardy poplars by the War Department was as
unsuccessful as the first. Therefore, the NPS
proposal to plant a native evergreen instead made
sense both from a need to control views to and
from the Memorial Building Landscape, as well as
to select a hardier species. Despite the size and
number of red cedars specified in the plans, the
report documents that these trees were
successfully obtained and installed with work
completed by November 26, 1935.

Despite the success in screening unwanted views
to and from the Memorial Building as
documented in the 1935 report, a visit by President
Franklin Delano Roose
been the impetus behind the next major planning
effort. In 1937 the NPS produced the “Master Plan
for Proposed Development.” As part of the

It in 1936 seems to have

68. Jones, 2.

SITE HistoRY

FIGURE 35. Screening of Nancy Lincoln Inn from
parking ellipse, 1935.

FIGURE 36. Memorial Building Landscape after
planting of red cedars, 1935

FIGURE 37. Red cedar allée framing the approach to
the Memorial Building, 1935.

Master Plan, one scheme proposed eliminating
the War Department parking ellipse and creating
a new parking area outside the park boundary in
much the same location and arrangement as
Maslin’s 1929 plan. This plan must have assumed
the purchase of the Nancy Lincoln Inn was
proceeding, and that this land was available for

National Park Service 33


Site HistORY

FIGURE 7. Construction shot showing agricultural
setting of the site, c. 1910

plantings, were in place at the time of the
dedication (Fig. 6).

The following is a detailed description of the
major landscape features developed under the
direction of Pope and the LFA. Because no master
plan exists, the descriptions are derived from the
numerous photographs taken during the
construction of the site, the dedication ceremony,
and soon thereafter.

Site Design and Layout. The centerpiece of the
design is the neoclassical Memorial Building,
which enclosed the Birth Cabin. It was sited atop
the knoll at the spot the where the Lincoln cabin
allegedly stood (identified as early as the 1860
Rowbotham sketch), and with the orientation that
McClure’s Magazine captured in its 1895
photograph. The formal axial relationship of the
Memorial Building and the Plaza set up a
controlled frontal view of the Memorial Building
facade, which was reinforced by a symmetrical
planting of Lombardy poplars (Populus nigra
‘Italica’) outside the formal stairway. From the
highpoint at the Memorial Building, the visitor
had a distant, southeasterly view of an agricultural
patchwork, dotted with small farms and woods
relatively unchanged from Lincoln’s childhood

(Fig. 7).

From the

jackson Highway (formerly the
Louisville Nashville Road), a gravel lane wound
through the site, opening onto a formal Memorial
Plaza outlined with a hedge and anchored with a
central flagstaff. From the Plaza, the visitor

FIGURE 8. Memorial Building and Stairway, 1924.

ascended fifty-six steps, one for each year of
Lincoln’s life. The Memorial Stairway was broken
into groups of fourteen risers with four landings
(Fig. 8).

The Pope renderings focus on the Memorial
Building and Stairway and do not address the
Sinking Spring or the Boundary Oak. Treatment
of these features and the larger landscape,
although recorded to have been “improved,” can
only be interpreted from the period photographs,
which seem to indicate that no discernible work
was done. The Creal house was left standing near
the entrance to the property and was used as the
site manager’s residence. From records and
photographs, the site manager was allowed to use
part of the site for crops, which provided an
agricultural setting (Fig. 9).

Circulation. The formal entry to the site
continued to be from the Jackson Highway. The
approach, although improved to a gravel surface,
seems to have remained a curvilinear route, along
which vehicles and visitors made their way into
the Plaza, and from there, made the final ascent to
the Memorial Building. No other formal paths or
walks were developed at this time outside the
Plaza area. Pink granite entry markers incised
with the park’s name were placed somewhere
near the entry, although their exact location is not
known (Fig. 10).

Views and Vistas. There is no specific reference

to views and vistas associated with the siting of the
Memorial Building and Plaza. It would seem,

National Park Service 15


ANALYSIS

FIGURE 63. Memorial Building Landscape under construction, c. 1910

Location

The designed Memorial Landscape exhibits a
high degree of integrity in relation to its location
within the Thomas Lincoln property, also known
as Sinking Spring Farm. The Memorial Building
purposefully occupied the accepted site of the
Lincoln cabin and was oriented in the same
direction (southeast) as the log cabin
reconstructed by Dennett and Bigham circa 1895.
The Sinking Spring and Boundary Oak, adjacent
to the Lincoln Farm Association development,
were drawn into the memorial plan with the
improvements completed by the War
Department. Therefore, the Memorial Landscape
occupies the heart of the Thomas Lincoln Farm as
it existed at the time of Lincoln’s birth (Fig. 63).

Design

The Pope design of the Memorial Building
Landscape was realized with the work that was
completed for the 191 dedication of the Abraham
Lincoln birthplace. Although there is no extant
plan that documents Pope’s hand in the selection
of plant materials or layout of the greater
landscape development, the fact that the work has

56 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham place Unit

never been attributed to another designer
suggests that it is Pope’s work. Related to the
original design are the improvements made by the
War Department, which were implemented to
accommodate visitor use. All of the War
Department’s work was extraneous to Pope’s
design with the exception of fill that was added to
the Plaza and the layout of cross-axial paths and
lawn as a part of that improvement. For the most
part, the War Department work was of high
quality and did not detract from the Pope
Memorial Building Landscape.

Because of development outside the park that
neither the War Department nor the NPS could
control, the NPS 1935 Planting Plan changed the
way visitors perceived the site, from one with
external views and vistas, to one that is very
internally focused. Although the planting of
cedars in 1935 was intended to frame the approach
walk and view toward the Memorial Building in
much the same way the poplars had, the long
term effect has compromised the original design
Approximately one-half of the original red cedar
allée survives. Red cedars, as they age, lose the


vi Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit



SITE HISTORY

emphatically states that the Lincolns were forced
to move after only two years because of the still
unsettled debt between Vance and Mather. Intent
on recovering their claim to the Sinking Spring
Farm, the Lincolns stayed on in Hardin County.
Beginning in 1811, Thomas leased thirty acres of a
230-acre farm on Knob Creek, nine miles
northeast of the Sinking Spring, owned by George
Lindsey.4 Lincoln’s reasons for staying on in the
area to fight for ownership of the Sinking Spring
property are not known. It is speculated that part
of his interest was in the acres of fertile land along
this branch of Nolin Creek, as well as its year-
round source of clean water. It is also possible that
Thomas and Nancy Lincoln wanted to stay near
friends and relations in the county. Thomas and
Betsy Sparrow and their adopted son, Dennis
Hanks, were kin to Nancy and lived just two miles
from the Sinking Spring Farm5

An 1813 suit brought by Mather to reclaim his
property at Sinking Spring Farm named Vance as
well as Lincoln. A series of Hardin County court
cases that followed are proof of Thomas Lincoln’s
desire to hold on to Sinking Spring Farm. Despite
his efforts, however, in December of 1816, the
disputed property was sold at auction on the
courthouse steps for $87.74: Thomas Lincoln,
unable or unwilling to pay the sum, left Kentucky
soon thereafter for Indiana, “where government
lands, systematically surveyed, were being offered
to settlers”®

Landscape Characteristics

of the Lincoln Period

There are only two features from the Lincoln
period that are consistently mentioned in the
historical documents: the Sinking Spring and the
Boundary Oak, both of which are mentioned in
the first surveys of the property. Lincoln’s
assignment in 1808 locates the property in relation
to the spring, and again in 1822 a title bond states
“for a one hundred acre tract around the ‘Sinking
Spring’ having its ‘beginning at a white oak,”
which was the “original corner to David Vance’s
three hundred acre survey.”7 In 1837, the first

4. Brown, 31.
5. Brown, 18.
6. Brown, 48.

6 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

recorded survey of the property establishes the
presence of “a large white oak thirteen poles

above the sinking spring or Rock Spring”®

Before the days of the railroad in Hardin County,
local stage routes connected the towns, providing
a circulation network. The local route from
Hodgenville to Elizabethtown was considered
essential as a mode of transportation for business
and social purposes. The Old Cumberland Road
was an important stage route from Louisville to
Nashville via Bardstown.

Continued
Agricultural Use,
1816-1894

After the Lincolns left for Indiana, the 300-acre
Sinking Spring Farm continued to be divided over
the next eighty years. John Welsh purchased the
three hundred acres from the Hardin Circuit
Court in 1816, and within a few years, he sold the
tract off in smaller parcels. By 1837, owners of the
southern half of the property, which included the
spring, were Henry Brothers and Richard Creal. It
is interesting to note that each subsequent deed
for this southern portion of the property includes
references to the spring and uses the same point of
beginning, the white oak. The subdivision of the
original 300-acre, mostly rectangular Lincoln
farm tract to the oddly shaped no acres owned by
the Creal family at the time of its sale to Alfred W.
Dennett in 1894 has been documented and
illustrated by both deed descriptions and
associated plats.?

It is assumed by all reports that the Creal family
never used the Lincoln cabin, which later
documentation determined was sold and moved
off the property by 1860." A 1941 National Park
Service report on the Creal house determined that
the building that was standing alongside the

7. Davis, “Report on the Original Thomas Lincoln
Nolin Creek Farm,” 8

8 Peterson, 3-5.

9. Davis, “Deeds Showing Richard Creal’s Ownership”
(Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site,
1948, Typescript), n.p.


Appendix

Suggested Native Trees and Shrubs
for Use in Wooded Areas

Botanical Name
Amelanchier arborea
Cercis canadensis
Cornus florida

Halesia caroliniana
Oxydendrum arboreum
Sassafras albidum

Ilex opaca

I. glabra

L. verticillata

Viburnum prunifolium
Juniperus virginiana
Kalmia latifolia
Hydrangea arborescens
Rhododendron catawbiense
Rhododendron calendulaceum
Callicarpa americana
Itea virginica
Hamamelis virginiana
Clethra alnifolia
Fothergilla gardenii

Common Name

Shadbush

Redbud

Dogwood

Silverbell

Sourwood

Sassafras

American Holly

Inkberry Holly (‘Shamrock’)
Common Winterberry
Blackhaw

Red Cedar

Mountain-laurel

Smooth Hydrangea (‘Annabelle’)
Catawba Azalea

Flame Azalea

American Beautyberry

Virginia sweetspire (Henry’s Garnet’)
Witchhazel

Summersweet

Dwarf Fothergilla (“Mount Airy’)

Groundcovers and Ferns for
Turfgrass Replacement in Shady Areas

Botanical Name
Heuchera americana
Hexastylis arifolia
Pachysandra procumbens
Polygonatum biflorum
Smilacena racemosa
Tiarella cordifolia
Athyrium filix-femina
Dennstaedtia punctilobula
Polystichum acrostichoides

Note: Selected plants should be naturalized in drifts of not less than seven plants.

Common Name
Alumroot

Wild Ginger
Allegheny Spurge
Solomon’s Seal
False Solomon’s Seal
Foam Flower
Southern Lady Fern
Hay-Scented Fern
Christmas Fern

National Park Service 77



Existing Conditions

Location

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic
Site is located in rolling hill country of LaRue
County, Kentucky, three miles south of
Hodgenville, the county seat, and approximately
50 miles south of Louisville (Fig. 48). The
Birthplace Unit contains 116.5 acres, representing
approximately one-third of the original 348.5-
acre Sinking Spring Farm. The Birthplace Unit is
bounded on the south by residential and
commercial development. Keith Road forms a
portion of the northern boundary. U.S. 31E bisects
the Birthplace Unit on a north-south axis.

FIGURE 48. Location map, 1999.

Topography

The Birthplace Unit lies in the extreme eastern
portion of the Pennyroyal, an approximately
8,000-square-mile physiographic region in west-
central Kentucky. The Pennyroyal is part of the
Highland Rim section of the Interior Low Plateau
physiographic province. It is a karst region, the
topography of which is produced by the
dissolution of soluble limestone by water and is
characterized by underground streams and caves,
sinkholes (dolines), small ponds, long valleys,
rolling hills, and occasional steep ridges and stone
escarpments. The site is characterized by a gently
undulating landscape with elevations ranging
from 750 to 780 feet above sea level. LaRue
County retains a predominantly rural character,
with farms of fewer than two hundred acres
producing crops of wheat, tobacco, soybeans, and
corn typical. The northeastern and southeastern
portions of the county are heavily forested.'

Spatial
Organization

No major change has occurred to the design and
layout of the western half of the Birthplace Unit
since the completion of Mission 66 improvements
that altered the way in which visitors experienced
the site. The Visitor Center became the Birthplace
Unit’s primary building for visitor services and
interpretation, and the planned experience
brought visitors to the Visitor Center first and
then to the Memorial Building. This reorientation
of visitors was consistent with the Mission 66
philosophy of centralizing park interpretive and
museum displays, park administrative offices,
restrooms, and various other facilities.

The eastern half of the Birthplace Unit has been
primarily developed for recreational use. Facilities

1. Blythe, 1.

National Park Service 45


74 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit



EXISTING CONDITIONS

and Louisville

Service Road

SCALE IN FEET

Picnic Shelter

To Hodgenville

Restroom

Parking

ENVIRONMENTAL. \
STUDY

|
|
|
!
AREA |
|
|
|
|
|

Abraham Lincoln
Birthplace Unit

Hodgenville, Kentucky _

Existing Conditions Map - East
November 2003
Figure 61

National Park Service 53


SITE HISTORY

The report included a detailed description of the
Sinking Spring as “the only natural distinguishing
feature of the farm” and “picturesque as an object
of interest” (Fig. 21). Access to the spring was
through a “narrow opening in the hedge,
series of stone flags half way down the steep slope.
The balance of the distance, of about 30 feet is by
foot path.” The concern was that in heavy rains,
the path became covered in “six inches of silt”
resulting in a “slippery, dangerous condition, as a
loss of footing might mean a ten foot fall.”54

over a

Various recommendations were proposed, and
some rejected, for improving this situation. The
report confirmed that the Plaza had a crushed
rock base, which by 1928 was covered in ten
inches of deposited silt from years of flooding. It
recommended that the crushed rock in the Plaza,
as well as in the stairway landings, be replaced
with “sidewalk brick on a concrete foundation”55
(E

Minor recommendations covered in the report
included, for instance, the full-time employment
of W.C. Ragsdale to work part of the farmland,
occupy the log house, and care for the farm and
Memorial Building, while Mr. Cissell’s

54. “Report on the Lincoln Farm & Memorial,” 20.
55. “Report on the Lincoln Farm & Memorial,” 20-22

FIGURE 21. Picturesque
nature of the Sinking
Spring, 1928

responsibilities remain “receiving visitors at the
Memorial Building.” The addition of another full-
time laborer was recommended because of
“policing” associated with the “construction of

the proposed hotel [Lincoln Inn]” and the need to
maintain the lawn and trees at a higher standard.

The final point the report addressed was the need
for “commodious rest rooms .. .with modern
sanitary fixtures.” It recognized the need for such
facilities to be sited well away from the Sinking
Spring. The report recommended replacing the
existing toilets, which were described as

“unsanitary and certainly a menace to the health
of visitors to the Lincoln Farm,’ with new facilities
in the same location “about 200 feet from the rear
of the Memorial Building,” In constructing new
rest rooms, it was recommended to provide a
separate and sanitary source of clean water5°

Even before the report’s completion, a 1927
memorandum from the Quartermaster General to
the Assistant Secretary of War raised the issue of
“extensive repairs and improvements [which] are
necessary to keep this shrine in proper
condition.”>7 Following the report's publication,

56. “Report on the Lincoln Farm & Memorial,” 23.
57. Peterson, 43.

National Park Service 23



TREATMENT

Picnic and Recreation Area

¢ Screen the picnic shelter/restroom structures
with native vegetation, planted parallel to U.S.
31E. White pines (currently planted along
Keith Road) are appropriate plantings for
screening in this location.

¢ Reduce mowing in this area to the extent
possible. Sixteen acres are currently being
mowed every week during the growing
season (Fig. 79).

¢ Maintain a buffer of tall grass between mown
recreation areas and the highway to create a
pastoral feeling that carries across the
highway.

¢ Control all invasive exotics affecting the
eastern half of the park.

U.S. 31E

The dogwoods and redbuds currently planted
along U.S. 31E are understory trees that have not
done well and need replacing (Fig. 80). The town
of Hodgenville has planted hawthorns along U.S.
31-E. Planting the same species at the park
entrance would create a sense of unity along the
roadway.

¢ Add plantings of Crataegus virdis ‘Winter
King, a cultivar with yearlong interest, at the
park entrance along U.S. 31E.

FIGURE 79. Portion of sixteen acres currently being
mowed weekly, 2003

FIGURE 80. Redbuds planted along U.S. 31E, 2003.

National Park Service 67



Site History

an appropriation of $100,000 was forthcoming in
December 1928, “for the purpose of protecting
from disintegration and of improving, beautifying
and preserving” the farm. Specifically, the
improvements were to include “rebuilding and
extending the road from the highway to the
Memorial Building, the construction of a comfort
station and rest rooms, and a proper drainage
system.” They were also to include repairs to the
existing buildings and fences, landscaping,
planting, and marking of boundaries. For the most
part, these recommendations addressed all the
inadequacies documented in the 1928 report.

In order to carry out these improvements, Captain
Francis I. Maslin was assigned as “construction
quartermaster in charge of improvement and
preservation of land and buildings at the farm”
and reported for duty in April 1929. Peterson
reports that when Maslin suggested
improvements of his own, the Quartermaster
General responded with a “statement of policy”
that allowed approval of plans “as will restore the
farm and birthplace of Abraham Lincoln to the
condition it was at Lincoln’s birth. . . the
surroundings must be kept simple and old-
fashioned as far as possible.”5*

The following, by subject, is a description of the
work carried out by the War Department between
1928 and 1933, when the park was transferred to
the National Park Service. The key sources of

58. Peterson, 48.

24 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

FIGURE 22. View of
Memorial Plaza, 1928.

information for this period are the “Lincoln Farm
National Monument-Reservation Map” (338/
9009 dated 1932, Fig. 23) drawn by the
Quartermaster General, War Department
documents, period photographs, and Peterson’s
administrative history. Peterson’s work is
particularly good for its detailed descriptions of
the sequencing of War Department improvement
projects, which is not repeated in the CLR. A
fourth source is an undated set of existing
conditions (338/6003) that seems to record the
work accomplished by the War Department on or
about the time of transfer to the NPS. They cover
the western half of the site only. What is not
established is whether these were the first existing
drawings accomplished by the NPS or the last as-
built plans documenting the War Department's
efforts. In addition to showing two-foot contour
elevations and individual tree sizes and species,
these plans were drawn in much greater detail
than any map that has been found to date and will
be used to supplement information not illustrated
on the plans but supported by other sources.

Site Design and Layout. Whereas the
development of the Memorial Building and its
immediate setting was the LFA’s focus, the War
Department's work emphasized improvements to
the greater site. This work addressed the serious
drainage and circulation problems that had
developed over the decades since the opening of
the park to the public. The War Department plans
record for the first time how the LFA
development related to the entire property and



SITE HISTORY

FIGURE 44. The Visitor Center,
1959.

these facilities until the recreation area was
constructed in 1968. The sites were leveled and
seeded

The Visitor Center with its freestanding rest room
was the most significant building constructed at
the park during Mission 66 (Fig. 44). Designed in
the Modern Style, the Visitor Center employed
structural steel and masonry (white brick). The
main entrance into the lobby was set back from
the front facade, forming an entry courtyard. A
covered walkway ran the length of the south and
west facades of the building. The flat-roofed
cover of the walkway abutted the building on the
inside edge and was supported by six-inch-
square metal columns spaced approximately ten
feet on center along the outer edge of the walkway.
A broad entry walk connected the Visitor Center
to the parking ellipse with two steps occurring at
the intersection of the covered walkway and the
entry walk. Secondary walks half that width
connected the Visitor Center to the War
Department steps leading down to the Plaza and
to parking.

Maintenance Complex/Park Housing. Two
single-story residences were constructed west of
the superintendent's residence in 1959.74 They are
wood-sided ranches with attached carports,

74, Blythe, 44

accessed off a common drive branching off the

maintenance road

National Park Service:
Post-Mission 66,

1966-Present

Since the completion of the Mission 66
development, no major additions or demolitions
have occurred to the Memorial Building and
Landscape. Most of the change in the park has
occurred because of the need to replace aging
features, or is the result of maturing plant material,
particularly the aging red cedars planted in the
mid-1930s.

Memorial Building and Landscape. The
installation of aluminum-framed glass doors
occurred at the north and south entrances to the
Memorial Building in 1971. The Memorial
Building and Stairway were repointed in 1985. The
Stairway was cleaned and repointed in 1990.
Changes also occurred inside the Memorial
Building in an effort to eliminate incorrect
interpretive panels, and this is covered in detail in
the Historic Structure Report.75

75. “Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Memorial Building
Historic Structure Report” (Cultural Resources
Division, Southeast Regional Office, 2001), 13.

National Park Service 39


SITE History

FIGURE 3. Pope's plan for a Lincoln Birthplace Memorial,
1908.

used the same classical design vocabulary evident
in the Lowell and Guerin plans, but the structure
is more temple-like than the previous design

(Fig. 3). Unlike the Lowell and Guerin plans,
which were based on a site visit and captured the
reality of the hilly terrain and the shape of the site,
Pope placed his building in a “broad green plaza”
that showed little reference to the existing
conditions. Pope’s final plans for the site would
change dramatically, but the Lombardy poplar
allée, setting off a raised temple-like structure
with forecourt, were elements that remained in
the final design. This article is the first mention
that the “museum will house, as its central object
of interest, the weather-worn little log cabin in
which Abraham Lincoln was born.” The project,
“which will tell the early yeomanry life out of
which Lincoln came,” was expected to cost “two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” The text

31. Richard Lloyd Jones, “The Lincoln Centenary”
(February 15, 1908), 12-13. According to Pope
scholar Steven Bedford, Charles McKim and LFA
board member Thomas Hastings chose John Russell
Pope without holding a formal competition,
believing him to be the most promising young
architect in independent practice.

12 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

FIGURE 4. Lincoln cabin re-erected on site for the
centennial celebration, 1909.

accompanying the article, despite what Pope’s
rendering suggested, prescribed that the property
“will be kept a farm, growing corn and squash,
bluegrass and grain.”

The 1909 Lincoln centennial celebration was a
laying of the cornerstone, not the dedication of a
completed park, as hoped. Still, President
Theodore Roosevelt, his wife, a number of
dignitaries, and twelve thousand participants
slogged through the rain and cold to see the
Lincoln cabin, which had been re-erected on site
to mark the location of the proposed memorial
(Figs. 4 & 5). Although newspapers recorded that
the celebration’s decorations looked “a fright”
because of the weather, they also took note of the


Site HisTORY

To Hodgenville
and Louisville

Restroom (c. 1970)

Parking (1968)
Service Road

Picnic Shelter:

(1993) \ ENVIRONMENTAL |

\ STUDY

Abraham Lincoln
Birthplace Unit

Hodgenville, Kentucky

— Historic Base Map - East
_— LT November 2003
SCALE IN FEET Figure 47

National Park Service 43



Analysis

The purpose of this section is to determine the
significance of the designed historic landscape as
it was developed in the effort to memorialize
Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace. The National
Register of Historic Places publishes the criteria
by which a designed landscape is evaluated and
determined significant. According to the National
Register, birthplaces do not usually qualify for
designation unless they fall into a special category,
which in the case of the Abraham Lincoln
Birthplace National Historic Site the exception is:

A property [that is] primarily commemorative
in intent if design, age, tradition, or symbolic
value has invested it with its own historical
significance.'
The effort to determine the landscape’s
significance according to National Register
criteria focuses on seven aspects or qualities of
integrity, which are location, design, settin;
materials, workmanship, feeling, and association.
The persistence of these qualities as they apply to
the landscape determines whether the landscape
“retains enough of its important features to
convey its historically significant appearance or
associations.” The Birthplace Unit in its entirety is
listed in the National Register because of its
association with Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth
President of the United States. The following
evaluation focuses solely on the Memorial
Landscape and whether it has significance as a
designed historic landscape.

Period of
Significance

Analysis of the memorial development of the
Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic

1. _ J. Timothy Keller and Genevieve P. Keller, National
Register Bulletin 18: How to Evaluate and
Nominate Designed Historic Landscapes
(Washington, D.C.: Department of the interior,
1987), 9

FIGURE 62. Memorial Building Landscape, 1938.

Site suggests that the period of significance begins
with the construction of the Pope Memorial
Building in 1911 and lasts through completion of
the work accomplished by the 1935 Planting Plan
implemented by the NPS soon after it gained
management of the park (Fig. 62).

Evaluation of
Integrity

The following is an evaluation of each of the
qualities of integrity as they relate to the memorial
development of the park. This evaluation adopts
the conclusion of the Historic Resource Study
that the entire Birthplace Unit is significant
because it is a portion of the original Thomas
Lincoln farm. However, the designed Memorial
Landscape, as a component of the larger setting, is
the focus of this evaluation.

National Park Service 55


NATIONAL
PARK

Cultural Resources
Southeast Region
National Park Service
100 Alabama St. SW
Atlanta, GA 30303
(404) 562-3117

2004

Cultural Landscape Report
Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit,
Abraham Lincoln Birthplace
National Historic Site
Hodgenville, Kentucky

The cultural landscape report presented here exists in two
formats, A printed version is available for study at the park,
the Southeastern Regional Office of the National Park
Service, and at a variety of other repositories. For more
widespread access, this cultural landscape report also exists
in a web-based format through ParkNet, the website of the
National Park Service. Please visit www.nps.gov for more
information.


Site HistoRY

the park at all, does not illustrate any trees, and
because of the way the topographic lines fade
before reaching the property boundaries, one
could assume that the eastern half was left
incomplete. The undated plans illustrate a
considerable amount of detail with some
individual trees located, named, and sized. It is
interesting to note that a clump of “peaches”
existed behind the Creal house.

National Park Service:
Park Development Era,
1933-1942

Just as the War Department was concluding the
improvements begun in 1929, newly elected
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an
Executive Order in 1933 that transferred all
federally managed historic sites, monuments, and
battlefields to the NPS, As early as February 1934,
the NPS sent a team to inspect the park because of
unfavorable conditions that had been reported to
the Director, Horace Albright. A letter Albright
received was particularly disturbing because the
writer, who visited the park in 1918 and had been
impressed by the “natural condition of the Farm,
totally void of all artificial adornment; returned
to find “the entire place destroyed and
commercialized.” He went on to describe the
“tourist cabins, curio shacks, broad expanses of
hard cement, cemented spring, shrubbery planted
in every corner de-naturalized ... by the
government which speaks of CONSERVATION
with every session of Congress.” Upon inspection
of the park, the NPS team came to many of the
same conclusions. Albright’s conclusion was that
"the whole Abraham Lincoln Birthplace area has
been badly handled from a landscape standpoint
and there is a great deal to do to bring it back to
the ideal although in some directions steps have
been taken that can never be remedied.” The
inspection report recommended a development
plan be drafted “so as to avoid additional mistakes
in the location of buildings”®

1935 Planting Plan. Limited funds were
forthcoming in 1934-35, but they were not used.
for “physical improvements,” which, according to

65. Peterson, 56-57.

Peterson, were to be funded separately under the
New Deal’s Public Works Administration. The
first substantial expenditure came with the
installation of the January 1935 “Planting Plan —
Approach Areas,’ which covered the western half
of the site. Implementation of the plan in the
spring and summer of 1935 was documented in the
“Report on the ‘Furnishing and Planting of Trees}
Public Works Project FP. 414” with accompanying
text and photographs. In addition to documenting
existing conditions of the park and the tree
planting effort, the authors comment on the
willingness of the owners of the Nancy Lincoln
Inn (Messrs. Howell and Ferrill) to sell their
property to the Federal government, which
according to the report, “awaits Congressional
action”®° (Fig. 34).

The only significant work from the Park
Development Era is the implementation of this
1935 Planting Plan, It affected the Memorial
Building and Landscape and most especially the
views and vistas. According to the report, the
proposed work resulted in the expenditure of
$7,867 for the planting of trees and another $2,250
for general improvement to the park grounds. The
clear intent of this work was to mitigate the impact
of development by primarily screening the views
from the Memorial Building and Plaza to the
parking ellipse and to the Nancy Lincoln Inn
(Fig. 35). There was also an attempt made to
screen what was described as the clear view to the
Nancy Lincoln Inn from the parking ellipse,
which visitors “invariably” took as “the object of
their visit” (Fig. 36). In addition, plantings were
needed to screen the service area from view
“during the winter months as seen from the plaza
at the foot of the Memorial Approach Steps.”7

The majority of the plantings were “large native
collected Cedars varying in size from 15 ft. to 20 ft.
in height and so planted as to give a feeling that
they were a part of a natural Cedar Grove on the
grounds and yet architecturally enclose and
confine the views as seen from the parking ellipse

66. Thomas H. Jones, “Report on ‘Furnishing and
Planting of Trees’ Public Works Project FP. 414”
(Abraham Lincoln National Park, December 7,
1935), 1.

67. Jones, 1.

National Park Service 31



SITE HistoRY

In Farm Larue. Co.ky

FIGURE 27. Lincoln Memorial Buliding Landscape after
War Department improvements, 1932

FIGURE 28, Closeup of Memorial Plaza, 1928.

constructed at the base of the Boundary Oak (see
amore detailed description at Boundary Oak) or

an underground structure at the northwest corner
of the Plaza. From the second location, water was
slowly released through a twenty-inch pipe to the
Sinking Spring.®?

Sinking Spring. In order to address the visitor
access hazards pointed out in the 1928 report,
stone retaining walls and stone steps were
constructed at the spring to formalize a safe way
down to the water level. Through an enlarged
opening in the Plaza hedge, a straight flagstone
walk was constructed connecting the Plaza to a
landing at the top of the steps. The steps
descended approximately fifteen feet to another
stone landing just above the spring itself. Although
no photographs survive to document the
completed construction, a 1934 inspection report

62, Francis |. Maslin to Quartermaster General, August
16, 1929, 1-6.

FIGURE 30. The Sinking Spring, 1938.

by the NPS upon transfer of the property to their
jurisdiction gives some indication of the resulting
effect. The Sinking Spring, once a beautiful
natural setting, had been turned into a “walled-in
artificial place approached by steps walled in on
each side with a high retaining wall and too much
masonry”®3 (Fig. 30)

Boundary Oak. Although the Boundary Oak
received no mention in the War Department's
1928 report, Peterson acknowledges that “twenty
years before [the War Department], a section of
the old Boundary Oak had been filled with

63. Peterson, 55.

National Park Service 29



ANALYSIS

FIGURE 67. Hedges along Memorial Building Stairway,
undated.

leading down from the parking ellipse to paths in
the Plaza were also replaced with aggregate
concrete at this time (Fig. 66)

The integrity of the significant Pope-era plant
material has also been altered by the NPS. The
decision to replace the Lombardy poplars with
cedars caused a dramatic change in the
relationship of the vegetation and the
architecture. Also, the simplification of the hedges
along the Memorial Building Stairway diminished
the integrity of the Pope design (Fig. 67)

Workmanship

The workmanship of the original Pope
construction, which includes the building,
associated walls, steps, and planting, was of the
highest quality. This was also true of the work
accomplished by the War Department. The fact
that the Pope work is nearing the century mark
and is still in good condition is evidence of both
its quality and the continuing maintenance of the
Memorial Building, walls, and steps. An exception
to the high quality of workmanship occurred in
1971 when aluminum entrance units were installed
on the north and south facades.

Feeling

The feeling of the Memorial Landscape—a temple
set on a hill that could be seen from a distance and
more importantly, seeing a pastoral landscape
from the temple
First, incompatible development (both within the
Birthplace Unit and outside the Birthplace Unit
boundary) that could be seen from the core of the
Memorial Landscape diminished the integrity of
feeling. Secondly, the increasing amount of
vegetation, both planted and seeded naturally,

has been altered over time.

that was encouraged to grow up between the
incompatible development and the Memorial
Landscape also contributed to a loss of integrity
(Fig. 68).

The primary experience of climbing a
monumental stair to the Memorial Building to
view the birth cabin is still very strong, although
compromised by the loss of a formally planted
edge that the Lombardy poplars or the early
cedars provided. The longer planned procession
through the surrounding agricultural landscape to
a monumental space dominated by the imposing
classicism of the Memorial Building has been cut
short by later construction within and outside the
Birthplace Unit boundary

Association

The association of the Memorial Building
Landscape with the birth of Abraham Lincoln,
sixteenth president of the United States is
unquestioned. Although today it is not the most
famous Lincoln memorial, it is the first memorial
developed to honor the life of the assassinated



Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge several individuals for thier assistance in the preparation of this
report:

The staff of Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site for their active cooperation and support
of the research, especially Ken Apschnikat, Superintendent, Gary Tally, Chief of Operations, Rebecca
Thomas, Administrative Officer, and Patti Reynolds, Park Ranger.

‘The Cultural Resources Division staff of the NPS Southeast Regional Office for technical assistance and

support, especially David Hasty, Historical Landscape Architect, for his help in preparing maps for the
report; and Tracy Stakely and Jay Womack for preparing the document for publication.

National Park Service xiii


SITE HISTORY

Notes:

The primary source for this map is the 1997 Existing Conditions
Map produced by the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation.
The source for NPS Property Line and Boundary Oak Trail

is the 2001 Base Map for the Historic Resource Study,

and the configuration of these features is approximate

Scale is approximate.

Residence
Area (1959)

Maintenance Shed (c. 1973)

Park Entrance aad

e-4+— Storage House (1930) modified 1958 & 2001

Entrance Gate (1958) ———>

\\
Cedar Alllee

(1935) \

Memorial
Stairway

Entrance Road (1929)

Sinking Spring Walls
(1929)

Parking Ellipse (1929; \.
modified 1958)

Walkways (1929;
modified 1984)

NK), |

Nancy Lincoln Inn (1928)

° 250
|
SCALEIN FEET

Legend
° Tree
- Bench

~Ann~ Fence

—-— __ NPS Property Line

Abraham Lincoln
Birthplace Unit
Hodgenville, Kentucky

Historic Base Map - West
November 2003
Figure 46

National Park Service 41



EXISTING CONDITIONS

FIGURE 56. Historic location of the Boundary Oak, 1994.

The Boundary Oak

The completion of a rehabilitation project
occurred in 1991, including the capping of the
stone wall, replacement of the rail fence, and the
placement of sod in the area.4 The historic setting
of the Boundary Oak has been lost due to the
limestone wall and drain that were built adjacent
to it. The historic location of the Boundary Oak
continues to function as a retention area that
holds floodwaters and allows them to dissipate
without flooding the Plaza (Fig. 56).

The cross section of the Boundary Oak is now
located in the Visitor Center and serve:
template for a chronology of Abraham Lincoln’s
life and related events. A GPS marker identifies
the historic location of the tree.

asa

Visitor Center

The Visitor Center is a single-story, flat-roof
building that has been altered over the years, the
most observable change being the installation of a
glass atrium over the building’s originally open
entry way, which occurred in 1991. The installation
of a new roof and the removal of the glass atrium
occurred in 2003, returning the lines of the
building to a flat profile.

4. Superintendent's Annual Report, 1991

FIGURE 57. Picnic area, 2003.

Picnic and
Recreation Area

The picnic area, located directly across from the
service road entrance, dates to 1968 and is
equipped with modern barbecue grills, wooden
picnic tables, and trash cans. Restrooms and a
picnic shelter are centrally located within sixteen
acres of open space, which is mowed regularly to
maintain a manicured appearance (Fig. 57). A13-
mile graveled hiking trail and an environmental
study area wind their way through the wooded
section of the recreation area.

Maintenance Complex /
Park Housing

A single-story, four-bay maintenance shed,
constructed after the demolition of the stone
garage in 1973, is located northeast of the
Memorial Building (Fig. 58). Two stone War
Department-era structures (a storage building
and a pump house) are located on either side of
the maintenance shed.

Two single-story, ranch-style houses, used to
provide housing for seasonal employees and
visitors, are located north of the maintenance
drive (Fig. 59).

National Park Service 49



Introduction

Management
Summary

The Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National
Historic Site (the Park) is forever dedicated to the
preservation, commemoration, and interpretation
of the cultural and natural resources associated
with the birth and early years of the sixteenth
president of the United States and the efforts of
the Lincoln Farm Association in establishing a
lasting tribute to Abraham Lincoln.

This cultural landscape report (CLR) for the
Birthplace Unit (the park) has evolved over a
number of years but always with the same
purpose driving its production: to provide Park
management with an evaluation of the landscape’s
significance and to provide treatment
recommendations for the preservation of its
significant features. The CLR documents the
history of the Birthplace Unit’s landscape change,
from its earliest agricultural use to its full-blown
development as a much-visited historical park.
An evaluation and analysis of these landscape
changes, based on the extant resources, is used to
determine a period of significance for the
landscape features, which in turn helps to shape
treatment recommendations developed to
preserve and enhance this commemorative site.

During the years of the CLR’s production, a key
piece of property was added to the Park. In 2001
the Park acquired the Abraham Lincoln Boyhood
Home at Knob Creek, located seven miles
northeast of Hodgenville, which protects the first
homeplace that Lincoln remembered. Although
the CLR does not address this property, the
treatment recommendations for the Birthplace
Unit are affected by the Boyhood Home Unit’s
ability to tell a part of the Lincoln story that is not
being interpreted in the landscape of the Lincoln
birthplace.

Prior to this CLR, the designed Memorial
Landscape has not been adequately addressed in
Park planning documents. The Memorial
Building that houses the Birthplace Cabin and its
associated monumental stairway were described
ina National Register nomination written in 1977,
but at the time no effort was made to nominate a
landscape of significance. The Park’s historic
resource study, which was begun in association
with the CLR and published in 2001, does include
a discussion of the historic landscape based on the
research for the CLR. That information is
expanded in this document.

The CLR begins with an historical overview of the
Birthplace Unit, documenting the evolution of the
landscape, from Sinking Spring Farm to its
ownership and management by the National Park
Service. Existing site conditions are described
and the landscape’s integrity is evaluated and
analyzed using National Register criteria. A
period of significance is determined and
landscape treatment decisions are proposed that
support the preservation and interpretation of the
historic setting as well as the management goals of
the Park. The CLR concludes with guidance on
preparing a Record of Treatment for the
landscape, identifying the steps necessary to
document landscape improvements as the Park
moves into the implementation phase of the
project.

Because of specific management needs associated
with the Memorial Building’s historic vegetation,
the expertise of the Olmsted Center for
Landscape Preservation was solicited. Members
of the center’s staff consulted on the CLR in the
summer of 1998. The team helped to complete a
Memorial Landscape vegetation inventory and
offered recommendations to preserve and
rehabilitate the historic landscape. Their
contributions are incorporated into the CLR.

National Park Service 1


|

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit,
Abraham Lincoln Birthplace
National Historic Site

Cultural Landscape Report

Prepared by Lucy Lawliss and Susan Hitchcock

National Park Service
Southeast Regional Office
Cultural Resources Division

2004

PLEASE RETURN TO:

TECHNICAL INFORMATION CENTER
DENVER SERVICE CENTER
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE


Site History

tm aw

FIGURE 20. View of Memorial Plaza with cultivated fields in the background, 1928.

engineering benefits to this solution, in the
author's view, the attractiveness of the farm as
seen by the visitors would be “greatly enhanced
by reforesting this area with dogwood, redbud,
maple and other native trees of Kentucky.” The
report recommended species to be planted as well
as information on where to acquire the trees.
Some trees—maple, dogwood, and cedar—could
be “transplanted from other parts of the farm,”
while redbud could be transplanted from Fort
Henry Knox “thirty miles away,” and still others—
catalpa, white ash, black locust, red oak, white
oak, and tulip poplar—were available from the
Kentucky Forest Service.’ The report did not
acknowledge the importance of interpreting a
farm, but focused rather on the aesthetics of the
site.

A detailed entry about the fences stated that they
were in “poor condition and should be replaced
within the next year or two.” It noted that the

Jackson Highway right-of-way was “unfence:
and that some property lines had “rail fences.

51. “Report on the Lincoln Farm & Memorial,” 8.

22 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

which “are indelibly associated with Lincoln in
the public mind and it is therefore considered
appropriate that this type of fence be put up in the
areas normally visited by tourists.”

A major concern for the Engineering Branch was
the approach road, which connected the Jackson
Highway with the Memorial Plaza. According to
the report “two granite posts, 3 % ft. square by 5 %
ft. high, with a clear opening of only 16 ft.
between, mark its junction with the highway.”
Only eight feet wide, the approach road was worn
to the * “subgrade and presented an unsatisfactory
condition, particularly in the steep sections .

and in wet weather.” Recommendations were
made for its improvement that included
reconstruction of the road and border plantings of
dogwood, redbud, and maple. Realignment to
eliminate a dangerous curve was recommended as
was improving the pavement, which was
described as a “cheaply constructed, thin, water-
bound macadam road."3

52. “Report on the Lincoin Farm & Memorial,” 8.
53. “Report on the Lincoln Farm & Memorial,” 17


TREATMENT

A Memorial Stairway

* Preserve memorial stairway and wails.

* Preserve benches.

* The existing hedge may be replaced with Ilex crenata 'Steeds.'

* Reestablish at least the outer edge of the hedge defining the
terraced lawn panels.

* Reshape the terraced lawn panels; do not replant with vinca.

* Replace existing red cedars with 34 columnar red cedars.

* Remove trees from within 20 feet of new planting and thin
remaining trees for light penetration; encourage native plants oe
in the understory.

B Sinking Spring

* Preserve the War Department rock work.
* Relocate cast-concrete drinking fountain.
* Reestablish hedges to 1935 configuration.
* Maintain stone edgings.

C The Plaza

* Retain the formal alignment of the walks.
* Preserve existing steps and walls.
* Restore hedges to 1935 configuration.
»* Establish an accessible walk from west
side of parking ellipse, including a small plaza
that aligns with the Memorial Building.
* Preserve the pink granite base of

the flagpole.
Memorial ‘ Nerpralstalway
Building —x 2 Cedar AlleeS
(1917) (1935)
Benches (1929) =
Ro Sinking Spring
7 Walls (1929)

Walkways (1929;
modified 1984)

D Views and Vistas

* Remove overgrown cedars that
no longer screen the Nancy Lincoln Inn.

Use 1935 Planting Plan to reestablish
screen plantings.

* Explore rerouting walk to Nancy Lincoln Inn.

s

*

should not be replanted.

| tae Lincoln Inn (1927),
\
\

* Cedars planted on the north side of the Memorial Building

E Maintenance Complex

* Preserve woodland character.
* Control invasive non-native plant species.
* Consider preserving the War Department stone structures.

Lego

Residence
Area (1959)

Service Road (1929)

Pump House (1930)

Maintenance Shed (c. 1973)

Storage House (1930)

\ Park Entrance (19.
\ modified 1958 & 201
UC Pathway of a President (1991)

\ Entrance Gate (1958)

\ Entrance Road (1929)

7 Visitor Center (¥958)

Flagpole
(1911)

Parking Ellipse (1929;
modified 1958)

_, = a

SCALE IN FEET

F Visitor Center, Entrance,
Parking Area

* Remove steps on the northwest side
of the Visitor Center & connecting
concrete aggregate walkway.

* Screen asphalt walk at the rear of the
Visitor Center with native vegetation.

* Minimize other plantings associated
with the Visitor Center.

* Replace dogwoods and redbuds
along U.S. 31 E with Crataegus viridis
‘Winter King.’

* Use snake rail fence to separate
formally mown grass areas from less
frequently mown areas.

Notes:

The primary source for this
map is the 1997 Existing
Conditions Map produced by
the Olmsted Center for
Landscape Preservation.

The source for the NPS
Property Line and Boundary
Oak Trail is the 2001 Base Map
for the Historic Resource Study,
and the configuration of these
features is approximate.

Legend

Snake Rail Fence
Rail Fence
NPS Property Line

Treeline

Tree

Bench

Abraham Lincoln
Birthplace Unit
Hodgenville, Kentucky

Treatment Map - West
November 2003
Figure 81

National Park Service 69



SITE HisTORY

nominee, about spearheading a popular
subscription drive to purchase the farm and to
present it to the county, state, or federal
government, Despite Bryan’s enthusiasm, nothing
got underway. About the same time, Richard
Lloyd Jones, managing editor of Collier's Weekly,
discussed with his employer, Robert J. Collier,
about “somehow marking the birthplace,”
knowing that any effort would require the efforts
of Mr. Collier’s magazine. With Mr. Collier's
support, Jones traveled to Hodgenville aware of
Dennett’s financial troubles. Jones enlisted a local
lawyer to advise him about the property so that he
would know when it would be available for
purchase. At the August 1905 auction, Jones had
the winning bid and purchased the Lincoln farm
for $3,600 in the name of Robert Collier, who
took possession in December of that year. The
Courier-Journal rejoiced that the farm had at last
“fallen into the hands of men of wealth who are
willing to spend large sums to beautify and

ornament it in the proper way?”3

Inaseries of articles in the February 10, 1906, issue
of Collier’s Weekly, Jones laid out his vision “to
develop the Lincoln Birthplace Farm into a
National Park.” This nine-page section of text and
photographs described Lincoln’s Kentucky
childhood, the farm, and various related sites in
the area. It also announced the formation of the
Lincoln Farm Association (LFA), which was to
have a Board of Trustees and various committees
of notables. The section closed with a page of
endorsements from President Theodore
Roosevelt, Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks,
Secretary of State Elihu Root, Samuel Clemens,
and governors and senators from across the
United States. Jones described the magazine’s role
as holding the farm “in trust for the nation” and
stressed that Collier’s had “no ulterior motive in
view?>4

Membership in the LFA was offered to all
contributors for a minimum of twenty-five cents
and a maximum of $25.00, for which one would
receive an engraved certificate. The money raised

23. Peterson, 20-21; Hays 147-51.
24. Richard Lloyd Jones, “The Lincoln Birthplace
Farm,” Collier's Weekly (February 10, 1906), 12-18.

10 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

was to fulfill the LFA’s plans “to restore the cabin
to its original site, clean and protect the old spring,
plant the fields in bluegrass and erect at least one
monument and historical museum.”*5 According
to Jones, the “park” planned by the LFA would
“differ widely from our other national parks, such
as Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge
[sic], Vicksburg and others, in that it will express
our national unity rather than preserve the
memory of our lamentable differences [and] to
cooperate with them in making this Kentucky
farm a worthy companion of Mount Vernon in the
affection of the American people and the
admiration of the world”

The LFA was incorporated on April 18, 1906, for
the purposes of honoring and perpetuating the
memory of Abraham Lincoln, the taking and
holding of the mo acres of his birthplace farm
(which was transferred to the LFA on June 19,
1906), and the development and maintenance of
the same.”7 With an illustrious board that
included such names as Augustus Saint-Gaudens
(sculptor), William H. Taft (twenty-seventh
president of the U.S.), Samuel Gompers (president
of the American Federation of Labor), William
Jennings Bryan (three-time presidential
nominee), and Ida Tarbell (one of America’s most
respected journalists), the LFA still had to work
hard to raise the necessary building funds. With
hopes of having the memorial completed by the
1909 centennial celebration of Lincoln’s birth, the
LFA discontinued the $25.00 maximum
contribution and boldly approached any and all
individuals and groups that might have an interest
in the birthplace development. The logs from the
dismantled cabin were put on tour again to raise
interest and funds (Fig. 2). With this effort
underway, Jones continued to solicit the federal
government’s support to establish a national park.
He was successful in getting a bill—H. R. 2043—
introduced in Congress in April 1908. Its request
for $100,000 “to aid the Lincoln Farm Association
of New York to build and endow a national
memorial to Abraham Lincoln on the site of the
Lincoln Birthplace Farm in Kentucky,” was

25. Peterson, 22.
26. Jones, 15.
27. Peterson, 23.




SITE HistorY

FIGURE 38. Deciduous trees planted outside the
formal landscape, 1935.

the park’s use. The Nancy Lincoln Inn was
illustrated in a new location adjacent to the new
entrance drive at the parking area. The plan also
proposed moving the Creal house away from the
entrance, nearer to the Memorial Plaza, and its
conversion to a Superintendent’s Office and
Museum. In order to address the elevation change
between the Memorial Plaza and the proposed
parking, a mirror image of the Memorial Building
Stairway was to be constructed with a reflecting
pool as the Plaza’s centerpiece. The flags!

f was
to be relocated to an entrance court at the top of
the proposed stairway

The other major effort of the Park Development
Era was a final decision on the disposition of the
Creal house. In January 1941, a “Report on the
Inspection of the ‘Creal House} Abraham Lincoln
National Historical Park” was submitted by Thor
Borresen, Assistant Historical Technician.
Borresen described the house as having been

and

represented “several periods of construction of

“constructed of hand hewn oak logs”

varying ages.” In a detailed assessment of each
section, Borresen determined that the structure
was about 65 to 125 years old, with the oldest

34 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit

FS

FIGURE 39. The Creal house, 1938.

sections being of the highest quality log and
construction technique (Fig. 39). He wrote that
during its use by the “W.P.A. . . . all the clay
chinking between the logs was removed and lime
mortar chinking was replaced.”®? Although
unsure of its historical significance in connection
to the Lincoln story, Borreson recorded that
Superintendent Cissell’s family was kin to the
Creals, and that the Creals were the only owners
since the Lincolns. He also indicated that the
house, as an agglomeration of log structures, was
probably moved to its present site from another
location, possibly after the construction of the
Louisville Nashville Road in order to be closer to
it. Borreson remarked that the house was an
interesting artifact in that it represented the
efforts of early pioneers to improve their living
condition. “Beginning with a small one room
cabin they gradually expanded as their incomes
became larger. Thus the provider, through his
determination and physical effort, provided a
nominal comfort for his increasing family.” He
concluded the report with “[W]e would then have
the two extremes. The Creal cabin group would
show the humble conditions under which
Abraham Lincoln was born. The formal memorial
building would illustrate how a great nation
perpetuates the memory of a great man.”7°
Despite the interest in the structure and the fact
that its like was quickly disappearing from the

69. Borreson, 2.
70. Borreson, 3-4



Site HistorY

x. “* >

FIGURE 15. View of the Sinking Spring, 1890s.

Sinking Spring. The Sinking Spring appears to
have been left in its natural state through the Pope
period of design and construction. It is apparent
from the photographs that many large trees
existed around the spring, which are not balanced
by similar plantings on the other side of the steps.
Many early photographs exist to document the
shady overgrown setting of the spring, and the
natural rock alcove in which it existed (Fig. 15).
Pope’s rendering illustrated a continuing row of
Lombardy poplars planted east and west at the
base of the steps. Perhaps these trees were
eliminated because they would have blocked the
entrance to the Sinking Spring, a well-known

place to visit. FIGURE 16. The Boundary Oak, 1919.

Boundary Oak. No mention of the Boundary

. i" Piers. SWew (NG. WON SyApe cu
Oak is made at this period except as a point of Waana. Meee
reference in the boundary description on the
property deed of transfer from the LFA to the
federal government (Fig. 16).

Park Landscape and Other Vegetation. Scattered
deciduous and evergreen trees are apparent in all
the period photographs with agricultural fields
still in cultivation. It is documented in a 1928
report that these fields were being tended by the
site’s caretaker still living in the Creal house.*'

FIGURE 17. The entrance road and park landscape beyond,
1928.

Beyond the hedge to the south, Figure 17 shows a
rising, uneven terrain with longer grass and
scattered evergreen and deciduous trees that

41. “Report of the Lincoln Farm & Memorial” (War
Department, Jeffersonville Quartermaster
Intermediate Depot, July 1928, photocopy), 7.

18 Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit


FIGURE 26. Aerial photo showing
proximity of Nancy Lincoln Inn,

The location of the Memorial Landscape in the
southwest corner of the property made direct
access from the parking ellipse difficult. To
accommodate the grade transition, a landing and a
set of stone steps were placed at the northwest
corner of the ellipse. At the base of the steps, an
east-west stone walkway, perpendicular to the
Memorial Building and centered on the flagstaff,
was installed. The perimeter hedge was extended
to the east to meet the walk as it approached the
Plaza. A second north-south-running path was
installed that was centered on the flagstaff and
terminated at the north end into a fla
landing installed at the base of the Memorial
Building Stairway and to the south, into a four-
foot-high freestanding ashlar stone wall. The
stone used in the wall, walks, landings, and steps
was limestone. With these accommodations for

pedestrian circulation, the Plaza’s gravel surface
was changed to grass.

In addition to the main entrance road, a narrow
(12-foot-wide), uncurbed service road was
developed along the north side of the property to
provide an alternate maintenance route to the
newly constructed comfort station, pavilion,
garage, and pump houses. A secondary pedestrian
walk system was provided from the Plaza to these
facilities by way of nearly symmetrical walks and
steps, located outside the formal Memorial
Building planting. The undated plans record
additional flagstone walks that were constructed
from the Plaza to the Boundary Oak, from the
parking area to the newly constructed Nancy

Site HisTORY

OLN MEMORIAL FROM THE AIP
°

Hodgenville, Ky.

Lincoln Inn and from the inn to the Plaza, and
from the approach road to the Creal house

Views and Vistas. By 1929, the primary view
southeast from the Memorial Building to the
greater agricultural setting had been
compromised by the construction of the Nancy
Lincoln Inn. This grouping of buildings—a
restaurant and four log cabins lined up along the
park’s southern boundary—faced into the park
directly in view from the Memorial Building

(Fig. 26). Although the most unfortunate of the
adjacent land use changes in terms of the impact
on the integrity of the park’s setting, the Nancy
Lincoln Inn was only one of many businesses that

sprang up to take advantage of increased auto
tourism. Farmers jumped at the chance to convert
worn out agricultural fields into tourism-based
development. The War Department was not blind
to the impacts of this changing landscape on the
Memorial Building and seemed determined to
take steps to limit the access of commercial
ventures “in order to preserve the integrity and
dignity of the historical scene”®° Despite these
sensitive observations, the record does not show
that any action was taken at this time.

Memorial Building and Landscape. The primary
work undertaken by the War Department on the
Memorial Building was roof repairs to correct a
persistent leak. More substantial work occurred
in the landscape, although no mention of it is

60. Peterson, 51

National Park Service 27


Site HistorY

FIGURE 5. Centennial celebration, 1909.

day
a brighter future and wrote:

ignificance. The Courier-Journal looked to

When in the days to come a beautiful
Doric temple enshrines the “log cabin of
destiny,” when landscape artists have
worked a paradise, let us not forget to doff
our hats, broad-brimmed or silk, to the
Lincoln Park Association [sic] and its
generous founders.3

‘Two years later, more than three thousand people
attended the dedication of the site in the fall of
1g. President William Howard Taft, a long-
standing LFA board member, gave the address,
and at the close of the event, Joseph M. Folk,
former governor of Missouri and president of the
LFA, turned the property over to the governor of
Kentucky, Augustus Willson. Governor Willson
accepted the property, pending the necessary

32. Jones, 12.
33. Louisville Courier-Journal, February 12, 1909, as
quoted in Peterson, 33.

legislation, and promised that the state would
augment the $50,000 trust fund established by the
LFA to maintain the property34 Despite the park’s
transfer to the state, the LFA continued to pursue
legislation to establish the birthplace as a national
park.

The Development of the

Lincoln Birthplace Memorial

The decision to radically alter Pope’s initial design
into its final form is not documented. One can
only imagine that the funds necessary to construct
the museum as originally conceived exceeded the
LFA construction budget. This theory
supported by the fact that the LFA made
persistent solicitations for funds with expected
donations falling short of the projected
construction costs. This would account for the
scaled-down memorial design—from museum to
one-room temple, enshrining the birth cabin35

is

34. Peterson, 34.

National Park Service 13



Foreword

We are pleased to make available this cultural landscape report as part of our ongoing effort to provide
comprehensive documentation for the historic structures and landscapes of National Park Service units
in the Southeast Region. Many individuals and institutions contributed to the successful completion of
this project. We would especially like to thank Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site
Superintendent Kenneth E. Apschnikat and Chief of Operations Gary Talley. In 2002, landscape
historian Susan Hitchcock updated a draft written by NPS Park Cultural Landscapes Program Lead
Lucy Lawliss several years earlier. We hope that the study will be a useful tool for park management and
for others interested in the history and significance of the cultural landscape of the Abraham Lincoln
Birthplace Unit.

Dan Scheidt

Chief, Cultural Resources Division
Southeast Regional Office

National Park Service xi



EXISTING CONDITIONS

Notes:
The primary source for this map is the 1997 Existing Conditions

Map produced by the Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation.

The source for NPS Property Line and Boundary Oak Trail
is the 2001 Base Map for the Historic Resource Study,
and the configuration of these features is approximate.
Scale is approximate.

Service Road (gravel)

oo

4 Limestone
/ Wall & Drain
:

Residence
Area

Pump House

Cedar Allee '\,
Memorial

Exposed
Aggregate
Walkways

Maintenance Shed

Storage House

Service Road (asphalt)

Entrance Gate ———»

Entrance Road

0 250

a eee |

SCALE IN FEET

Legend

Ce Tree
oO Tree
QO Tree
° Tree
. Shrub
- Bench
vA~ Treeline
—~ ~- Fence

—-—__ NPS Property
Line

Abraham Lincoln
Birthplace Unit

Hodgenville, Kentucky

Existing Conditions Map - West
November 2003
Figure 60

National Park Service 51



TREATMENT

Treatment

To Hadgenville Recommendations

and Louisville

Wee’

1

|

\ * Parallel to U.S. 31, screen
4 the picnic pavilion and

| restroom structure with

{ native vegetation, such as
t the white pines planted

| along Keith Road

' * Reduce mowing of the

{ sixteen acres to the extent
' possible.

1 * Maintain a buffer of tall

' grass between the mown
| area and the highway.

| * Control all invasive exotics.
'

Restroom

|
Parkin |
Service Road |
Nees
|
a
ENVIRONMENTAL | |
sTUDY / |
1
\
|
{
1
a |
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
|
1
\
1
|
5
-!

Abraham Lincoln
Birthplace Unit

Hodgenville, Kentucky

oe ee | Treatment Map - East
° S00 November 2003
SCALE IN FEFI Figure 82

National Park Service 71



Site HistorY

surrounding countryside, the demolition and
removal of the Creal house was completed in 1941.

Despite the continued dissatisfaction with the
overall condition of the park, none of the work
Proposed in the 1937 Master Plan proceeded and
no purchase of the Nancy Lincoln Inn resulted.
Rather, the park’s focus shifted to interpretation
and the need to authenticate the Birth Cabin,
which resulted in research efforts to verify the
park as the Thomas Lincoln farm. In 1948, park
historian Ben Davis prepared a “Report on the
Original Thomas Lincoln Nolin Creek Farm,
Based on Court Records,” which confirmed the
property’s authenticity and a companion
document “A Report on the Abraham Lincoln
Traditional Birthplace Cabin,” which left the
cabin’s origins in doubt. Several reports examined
the birthplace cabin’s authenticity and the
opinions were submitted to the Advisory Board
on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings, and
Monuments in November 1950. They
recommended that the NPS make clear that “it
considers the authenticity of the cabin
debatable.”” As a result of all the research, a bill
was introduced and successfully passed in 1939
changing the park’s name to Abraham Lincoln
National Historical Park in recognition of it being
the only park in the system that interpreted the life
of this important American.

In 1948, a new entrance sign and four historical
markers were erected in the park. The granite
markers and pillars that stood on U.S. 31E were
removed. Plans were finally approved in 1949 fora
single-story frame superintendent's residence.
Actual construction did not occur until 195177
(Fig. 40).

71. Peterson, 97. See Roy Hay’s 1948 article “Is the
Lincoln Birthplace Cabin Authentic?”, which
thoroughly examined the traditional birthplace
cabin’s origins. Park historian Benjamin H. Davis
wrote three reports: “A Report of the Abraham
Lincoln Traditional Birthplace Cabin,” May 16, 1948;
“Report of Research on the Traditional Abraham
Lincoln Birthplace Cabin,” February 15, 1949;
“Comments on Statements Made by Dr. L. A
Warren Concerning the Traditional Lincoln
Birthplace Cabin,” October 7, 1950. Dr. Louis A
Warren wrote “The Traditional Birthplace Cabin,”
April 17, 1950.

FIGURE 40. Superindentent's residence, 1996.

National Park Service:

Mission 66,

1950-1966

The Park Development Era ended with the
country’s entry into World War IT. No new plans
were drawn for the park until the next wave of
NPS funding that came with Mission 66. This
Post-war initiative was a system-wide effort to
address World War II’s effects on the national
parks: deferred maintenance and a tremendous
jump in visitation. As an example, Abraham
Lincoln National Historical Park’s yearly
visitation doubled from 133,503 in 1950 to 287,847
by 1956, which resulted in part from the
completion of the Kentucky Turnpike and the
improvement of the Jackson Highway to U.S. 31E.

In keeping with Mission 66 language and purpose,
plans for an “Administration-Museum Building,”
which had been the goal of the earliest LFA plans,
evolved into a Visitor Center in the final design,
approved in 1956 (Fig. 41). Early studies
considered a location behind the Memorial
Building for this structure, but in the end, a site
adjacent to the parking ellipse was selected.
Because interpretation was foremost in the minds
of Mission 66 designers, the Museum Prospectus
is indicative of the park’s shift in focus from the

72. See “Residence Area” drawing 338/2006 dated
October 1949; Peterson 73.

National Park Service 35



Site HisTORY

FIGURE 41. Visitor Center Floor Plan and Elevation, 1958.

National Park Service 37



xiv Cultural Landscape Report: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Unit