Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site

Boyhood Home Unit

Lincoln Cabin

Historic Structure Report

2005

Historical Architecture, Cultural Resources Division

Southeast Regional Office

National Park Service
Cultural Resources

Southeast Region

National Park Service

100 Alabama St. SW

Atlanta, GA 30303

(404) 562-3117

The historic structure report presented here exists in two 

formats. A traditional, printed version is available for study 

at the park, the Southeastern Regional Office of the NPS 

(SERO), and at a variety of other repositories. For more 

widespread access, the historic structure 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.

2005

Historic Structure Report

Lincoln Cabin

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site

Hodgenville, KY

LCS#: 473358

Cover page: undated postcard, KyGenWeb Special 

Collections


LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Table of Contents 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page i 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

MANAGEMENT SUMMARY 

Executive Summary............................................................................................1 

Administrative Data............................................................................................4 

PART I – DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORY 

A. Historical Background and Context................................................................I.A.1 

Kentucky............................................................................... I.A.1 

The Lincoln Family..................................................................I.A.1 

Knob Creek Farm..................................................................... I.A.2 

Life in Indiana........................................................................ I.A.4 

Political Aspirations.................................................................. I.A.4 

Civil War.............................................................................. I.A.5 

A National Hero...................................................................... I.A.6 

Birthplace Memorial................................................................. I.A.6 

Other Memorials..................................................................... I.A.7 

Knob Creek after the Lincolns...................................................... I.A.7 

Growing Tourism..................................................................... I.A.8 

The Lincoln Boyhood Home....................................................... I.A.8 

The Tavern............................................................................ I.A.9 

Site Managers......................................................................... I.A.10 

Growing Significance............................................................... I.A.10 

Changing Hands...................................................................... I.A.10 

National Register Nomination...................................................... I.A.11 

A Secure Future...................................................................... I.A.11 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit......................................................... I.A.11 

Other Studies.......................................................................... I.A.12 

 

B. Chronology of Development and Use..............................................................I.B.1 

Initial Construction and Early Operation......................................... I.B.1 

Maintenance........................................................................... I.B.3 

2001: National Park Service........................................................ I.B.3 

Chronology........................................................................... I.B.4 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Table of Contents 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page ii 

C. Physical Description.................................................................................I.C.1 

General Description.................................................................. I.C.1 

Construction Characteristics........................................................ I.C.2 

Physical Condition................................................................... I.C.5 

PART II – TREATMENT & USE 

A. Introduction......................................................................................... II.A.1 

B. Ultimate Treatment & Use........................................................................ II.B.1 

C. Requirements for Treatment ...................................................................... II.C.1 

D. Alternatives for Treatment ........................................................................ II.D.1 

E. Recommendations................................................................................. II.E.1 

General.................................................................................. II.E.1 

Site..................................................................................... II.E.1 

Cabin................................................................................... II.E.2 

REFERENCES 

APPENDICES 

A. As-Found Floor Plan 

B. Interview Transcripts 

C. Structural Report 

D. Architectural Evaluation, Lincoln Boyhood Home, by Karen E. Hudson, Ph.D. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Project Team 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page i 

PROJECT TEAM 

Project Manager Tommy H. Jones, Architectural Historian 

 National Park Service 

 Southeast Regional Office 

 Atlanta, GA 

Program Review Coordination Sandy Brue, Chief of I & RM 

 Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site 

 Hodgenville, KY 

 

 Tommy H. Jones, Architectural Historian 

 Southeast Regional Office 

Building Investigation/ Joseph K. Oppermann, FAIA 

Building Condition Assessment Joseph K. Oppermann – Architect, P.A. 

 Winston-Salem, NC 

Research Joseph K. Oppermann, FAIA, Historical Architect

 Joseph K. Oppermann – Architect, P.A. 

 Winston-Salem, NC 

Building Recordation Joseph K. Oppermann, FAIA, Historical Architect 

 Jennifer Plocher Wilkins, Assoc. AIA

 Joseph K. Oppermann – Architect, P.A. 

 Winston-Salem, NC 

Document Layout Jennifer Plocher Wilkins, Assoc. AIA 

 Amanda R. Lynn 

 Joseph K. Oppermann – Architect, P.A. 

 Winston-Salem, NC 

Report Editor Jane Kelly 

 Message Makers 

 Winston-Salem, NC 

 

LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Executive Summary 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page 1 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

 

In 1911, a grand Memorial Building was 

constructed near Hodgenville, Kentucky, at 

the site of Sinking Spring Farm, the 

birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. The 

building and 110 acres were donated to the 

Federal Government in 1916, forming 

Abraham Lincoln National Park; in 1939 the 

National Park Service became steward of the 

park. The park was renamed Abraham 

Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site in 

1959. 

This site honoring one of the nation’s bestloved presidents, coupled with improved 

road and highway systems, greatly increased 

tourism to the area in the 1920s and 30s. 

Hattie and Chester Howard were one of 

several families that tried to capitalize on the 

booming tourist trade and honor the local 

hero. The Howards purchased Knob Creek 

Farm in 1931 with the intention of creating 

another memorial to Lincoln. This land was 

the Lincoln family’s home from 1811 to 

1816, and by Lincoln’s own admission was 

the site of some of his earliest memories. 

Here, the Howards used the logs of a cabin 

belonging to the family of Lincoln’s 

childhood friend Austin Gollaher to re-build 

a hewn-log cabin said to resemble Lincoln’s 

boyhood home. Then in 1933, they followed 

in the established theme of Lincoln’s rustic 

log structure and built the adjacent Lincoln 

Tavern. This second structure, made of 

exposed round logs purportedly cut from 

trees felled on the site, was a popular dance 

hall and nightclub for travelers. After the 

sale of alcohol became illegal, the tavern 

was converted to restaurant and gift shop in 

the 1950s. In recognition of their significant 

role in Larue County tourism the site 

containing the cabin and tavern was listed in 

the National Register of Historic Places in 

1988 as the Lincoln Boyhood Home. The 

National Park Service acquired the site from 

members of the Howard family in 2001 for 

inclusion in the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace 

National Historic Site (ABLI) and named it 

the Boyhood Home Unit. 

The bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth falls on 

February 12, 2009; a two-year celebration of 

this event will kick off at ABLI on that date 

in 2008. In anticipation of the 

commencement of this celebration, the 

National Park Service contracted with 

Joseph K. Oppermann – Architect, P.A. 

(JKOA) in November 2005, for the purpose 

of preparing an historic structure report with 

Class C cost estimate for repairs for the 

Tavern and another for the Cabin. The 

study team included Joseph K. Oppermann, 

FAIA, historical architect, and Jennifer 

Plocher Wilkins, intern architect, of JKOA; 

Langdon Edmunds Oppermann, 

architectural historian; Ronald W. Brown, 

P.E., mechanical/electrical/plumbing 

engineer of Ronald W. Brown Consulting 

Engineers; and David C. Fischetti, P.E., 

structural engineer of DCF Engineering, Inc. 

In the preparation of these historic structure 

reports, Sandy Brue, Chief of Interpretation 

& Resource Management of ABLI, provided 

from that office’s files copies of earlier 

reports, the draft General Management Plan 

(GMP) for the park and other relevant 

documents. Tommy Jones, architectural 

historian of the National Park Service’s 

Southeast Regional Office (SERO), 

provided technical data and leads for 

additional sources of information regarding 

some early twentieth century building 

materials. Mary Brooks Howard graciously 

submitted digital copies of early family 

photographs and offered her recollections of 

the property. Milburn Howard likewise 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Executive Summary 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page 2 

generously gave of his time to be 

interviewed regarding his involvement with 

the site. Wilkins reviewed the historic 

documents, located other secondary sources, 

retrieved maps and other iconographic 

images. She also took measurements and 

produced measured drawings of floor plans 

and architectural details. J. Oppermann and 

Wilkins prepared the digital photodocumentation of the building and site. L. 

Oppermann prepared the architectural 

description of the building. J. Oppermann, 

Fischetti and Brown investigated the 

building fabric and building equipment to 

determine the building’s evolutionary 

history and assess its condition. Besides 

several small samples of wood taken from 

the perimeter walls, no other historic fabric 

was removed. No other invasive method of 

investigation was employed. No equipment 

was tested. Dr. Joseph Loferski of the 

Brooks Forest Products Center at the 

Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State 

University analyzed the species from the 

wood samples. J. Oppermann, Fischetti and 

Brown prepared the cost estimates. 

The investigating team found that the cabin 

retains much of its original 1931 building 

fabric but that there also have been 

numerous replacements of material, 

primarily associated with the chimney and 

fireplace but also involving the perimeter 

hewn-log walls. Recent stabilization efforts 

by NPS included interior and exterior 

bracing of the cabin, removing the wood 

flooring system in the process, and exterior 

bracing of the chimney. Further, the 

memorial cabin that was created in 1931 

was clearly different in important design 

characteristics from the cabin whose parts 

were used; the salvaged parts were not 

dismantled and reconstructed in a systematic 

fashion but rather treated as raw building 

material. Nonetheless, the resultant 

memorial cabin is a valuable window onto a 

1930s approach to historic site 

interpretation. 

The team also found the cabin to have 

serious structural problems. A number of 

logs in both the perimeter cabin walls and in 

the chimney have severe deterioration from 

rot. Complete dismantling will likely be 

necessary in order to implement the essential 

whole-unit replacement of some logs and 

Dutchman repairs to others. 

The one-room interior of the cabin has no 

heating, cooling systems or plumbing 

systems. It does have electrical wiring to 

accommodate 1950s era tear drop lighting 

fixtures. Family photographs from the early 

days of operation indicate the fireplace and 

mantel have been redesigned and rebuilt. 

The General Management Plan (GMP) for 

ALBI, now in draft form, calls for the 

exterior and interior restoration of the cabin 

to its original 1931 appearance. 

This Historic Structure Report (HSR) is in 

agreement with the preferred treatment 

identified in the park’s GMP. The period of 

significance for this property according to 

the approved National Register Nomination 

Form is 1933-38. A large percent of the 

original building fabric, both interior and 

exterior, remains intact. For features that 

have been removed or modified, such as the 

flooring, there is documentation and 

physical evidence to permit accurate 

restoration. Much is to be gained by 

interpreting tourism of the early twentieth 

century as it relates to historic persons, as is 

the case with this property. It is a dimension 

of tourism not commonly emphasized. 

To restore the cabin to the recommended 

treatment, replacement logs should be 

installed at damaged areas of the cabin and 

chimney to match original 1930s 

construction. Modern Portland cementbased chinking at the chimney should be 

removed and replaced with mud-based 

chinking to match original construction. 

These repairs likely would require extensive 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Executive Summary 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page 3 

shoring or even dismantling; in the later 

case, each building part should be assigned a 

unique number, marked, and noted on 

measured drawings and/or photographs. 

New wood shingle roofing, appropriate to 

the original 1930s construction, should be 

installed. 

Inside, the presumably original 1931 wood 

floor that was removed in 2003 should be 

reinstalled. Where damaged, Dutchmen 

repairs should be made. Where 

mismatching replacement boards have been 

installed, they should be replaced with 

boards matching the original 1931 

construction. The limestone firebox 

surround should be preserved until further 

study determines whether it was installed 

during the period of significance. 

LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Administrative Data 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page 4 

ADMINISTRATIVE DATA 

Locational Data 

Building Name: Lincoln Cabin

Building Address: 7120 Bardstown Road, Hodgenville, KY 42748 

NPS Orgcode: 5540 

Location: Abraham Lincoln Birthplace NHS 

County: LaRue 

State: Kentucky 

Related Studies 

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. 

Hudson, Karen E. Architectural Evaluation: Lincoln Boyhood Home, Knob Creek Farm, LaRue 

County, Kentucky. National Park Service, Southeast Regional Office, 1997. 

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Lincoln Boyhood Home. Athertonville, 

KY: United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1988. 

Nickel, Robert K. A Ground-Penetrating Radar Survey at the Knob Creek Farm Unit: Abraham 

Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site, Kentucky. Tallahassee, Florida: Southeast 

Archeological Center, National Park Service, 2005. 

Sculle, Keith A. “The Howard Family Legacy at the Knob Creek Farm.” Journal of the Abraham 

Lincoln Association, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2005): 23-48. 

Real Property Information 

Acquisition Date: November 6, 2001

Numbering Information 

LCS #: 07238 

Structure Number: HS-1A 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Administrative Data 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page 5 

Size Information 

Total Floor Area: 279 sq. ft. 

First Floor Area: 279 sq. ft. 

Additional Floor Area: (loft)

Crawl Space Area: n/a 

Basement Area: n/a

Roof Area: 5 sq. 

Perimeter Length: 77’-2” 

Number of Stories: 1 

Number of Rooms: 1 

Number of Bathrooms: 0

Cultural Resource Data 

National Register Status: Listed

National Register Date: 1988

Period of Significance: 1933 - c.1938 

Proposed Treatment Exterior and interior restoration to original 1930s appearance. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Part I.A Historical Background & Context 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.A.1 

PART I. DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORY 

A. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT 

The sixteenth president of the United States, 

born into simple surroundings, grew to lead 

this country through its most divisive time. 

The stories of Abraham Lincoln’s birth in a 

log cabin in Kentucky, youth largely without 

formal education, and early political defeats 

are well known. His leadership through the 

Civil War and issuance of the Emancipation 

Proclamation were turning points in the 

history of this country. Lincoln’s untimely 

death further contributed to his status as an 

American icon. 

Kentucky 

The area that is now Kentucky was largely 

opened by land companies through 

surveying beginning in the 1750s, and later 

by explorers such as Daniel Boone, who 

helped to blaze the Wilderness Road in 

1775. There were few settlements but 

Native Americans used the lands for 

hunting; broad expanses of forest supported 

such game as deer, buffalo, bears, turkeys, 

and other wild fowl. Salt licks, natural salt 

deposits, drew buffalo in great numbers, 

their traffic creating natural roadlike traces. 

A vast area south of the Ohio River called 

the “Pennyrile” was clear of trees and 

covered with grass, where Native Americans 

supposedly had cut the trees to entice 

buffalos to graze.1

 The name was taken 

from the pennyroyal, a plant in the mint 

family. Geologically, the Pennyrile is a 

karst region, where soluble limestone 

bedrock creates frequent caves and 

sinkholes. 

 

1

 R.S. Cotterill, History of Pioneer Kentucky 

(Cincinnati: Johnson & Hardin, 1917), 3. 

Virginia claimed the land as part of that state 

in 1776, and called it Kentucky County. As 

settlement increased, Kentucky County was 

subdivided in 1780, creating Jefferson, 

Fayette, and Lincoln counties. Individual 

statehood was first addressed at a 

convention in Danville in 1784. Virginia 

passed a law for Kentucky’s independence 

in January 1786, and on June 1, 1792, the 

Commonwealth of Kentucky officially 

became the fifteenth state in the Union. 

Figure A-1 Map of Kentucky with Knob Creek site 

indicated, 1784 (Filson)

The Lincoln Family 

The Lincoln family traces its roots back to 

Samuel Lincoln, who immigrated to Salem, 

Massachusetts, from England in 1637. 

Samuel’s descendant Captain Abraham 

Lincoln served in the Virginia Militia during 

the Revolution, that service providing him 

treasury warrants for land in Kentucky. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Part I.A Historical Background & Context 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.A.2 

Abraham’s first wife died in 1776, leaving 

him with four young children. With his new 

wife Bersheba, son Thomas was born on 

January 6, 1778. The opportunities of the 

picturesque Kentucky frontier drew Lincoln 

and his family to relocate there in 1782. 

The family eventually settled in what is now 

Jefferson County, Kentucky. Thomas and 

his father were tending fields in 1785 when 

raiding Indians killed Abraham. Thomas 

then moved with his mother to what is now 

Washington County, where they lived on a 

small farm provided by his half-brothers. 

Thomas moved to Elizabethtown as early as 

1796, where he trained as a carpenter and 

later is listed on tax records as a farmer.2

 

Thomas Lincoln married Nancy Hanks on 

June 12, 1806, in Washington County. 

Hanks is said to have been born in 1784 in 

Virginia; evidence suggests that she was the 

daughter of Lucy Shipley Hanks Sparrow 

and James Hanks. Neither Thomas nor 

Nancy had a formal education; it is said that 

they were nearly illiterate. Nancy was very 

religious. The new family returned to 

Elizabethtown where Thomas continued his 

carpentry trade. Their first child Sarah was 

born February 10, 1807. 

In December 1808, Thomas purchased 300 

acres called Sinking Spring Farm,3

 which 

was named for a sinkhole and natural spring 

located on the property. The farm was about 

two miles from Hodgen’s Mill (now called 

Hodgenville), established on the Nolin River 

in 1788 by Robert Hodgen. Hodgen’s Mill 

initially was in Nelson County, carved out of 

Jefferson County in 1785. By the time the 

Lincolns arrived, the land was in Hardin 

County, which was created out of Nelson 

 

2

 Kent 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), 5. 

3

 Ibid, 20. 

County in 1793; Elizabethtown was the 

county seat. Thomas cleared and worked 

the land at Sinking Spring Farm, a common 

occupation in that area. Their second child 

Abraham was born in the family’s log cabin 

on the farm on February 12, 1809. 

In 1811 a legal dispute over the title for the 

farm caused the Lincoln family to move to a 

new farm on Knob Creek when young 

Abraham was just two years old. Legal 

proceedings regarding the rightful 

ownership of Sinking Spring farm continued 

in Hardin County Circuit Court. 

Figure A-2 Sinking Spring Farm, 1895 

(National Park Service) 

Knob Creek Farm 

The Knob Creek Farm was a 228-acre tract 

owned by George Lindsey, located about 

seven miles north of Hodgen’s Mill. 

Thomas Lincoln was one of several 

leaseholders and held thirty acres in his 

parcel.4

 The Bardstown and Green River 

Turnpike ran along the east side of the farm, 

connecting Nashville, Tennessee, to 

Louisville, Kentucky. The family’s log 

cabin most likely faced the turnpike. 

Many of Lincoln’s neighbors were also 

small farmers and leaseholders rather than 

land owners. Tax records show that only 

one neighbor, tanner William Brownfield, 

had a specific profession listed. As one of 

more prosperous men in the area, 

 

4

 Ibid, 31.
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Part I.A Historical Background & Context 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.A.3 

Brownfield owned several horses and 

reported the custody of one slave in 1805, 

though he also leased land as opposed to 

owning it.5 Only one neighbor, George 

Redmon, was shown in tax records as 

owning a wagon.6 Other neighbors such as 

John Dye and William Ash held slaves, one 

in 1806 and four in 1808, respectively.7 In 

much of Kentucky, slave labor was not as 

prevalent as in the Deep South owing to the 

smaller size of most farms. 

Located on Knob Creek, a tributary of the 

Rolling Fork River, the bottomland in 

Thomas Lincoln’s parcel provided fertile 

soil for farming. Muldraugh’s Hill, a 

limestone cliff and ridge extending across 

the state, surrounded the farm on the north, 

east, and west sides. This hill and the other 

“knobs” in the area caused the creek to swell 

quickly with rain. In a later conversation at 

the White House, Abraham Lincoln 

recounted his memories of farming at Knob 

Creek: 

I remember that old home very well! Our farm 

was composed of three fields. It lay in the valley 

surrounded by high hills and deep gorges. 

Sometimes when there came a big rain in the 

hills the water would come down through the 

gorges and spread all over the farm. The last 

thing that I remember doing there was one 

Saturday afternoon. The other boys planted the 

corn in what we called the big field - it contained 

seven acres - and I dropped the pumpkin seeds. I 

dropped two seeds every other hill and every 

other row. The next Sunday morning there came 

a big rain in the hills. It did not rain a drop in the 

valley, but the water coming down through the 

gorges washed ground, corn, pumpkin seed and 

all clear off the field.8

 

5

 Ibid, 53. 

6

 Ibid, 56. 

7

 Ibid, 54-55. 

8

 Ibid; also Ida Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln 

(New York: Lincoln History Society, 1900), 17. 

Figure A-3 View of the Knob Creek farm, 

December 2005 

Another traditional story of Abe’s youth at 

the Knob Creek farm has him playing near 

the rain-swollen creek with Austin Gollaher, 

a neighbor, when the future president fell in. 

Gollaher helped Abraham out of the water 

with a branch, saving him from drowning.9

 

This event was said to have occurred around 

1812. 

Though the setting of the farm was rural, the 

proximity to the turnpike, a primary travel 

artery, would have exposed the family to a 

variety of people. Tradition holds that Abe 

witnessed slaves being driven to market 

down the road, which affected his later 

views on slavery. Thomas Lincoln was 

appointed surveyor for part of the road near 

the cabin in 1816, demonstrating his 

standing within the area. 

Abraham and his sister Sarah attended ABC 

schools in Kentucky, one of them in a log 

building about two miles down the turnpike 

from Knob Creek. Lincoln called this the 

“blab school” because of the recitation 

required of the students. Though life on the 

frontier required manual labor, Abraham 

was said to have preferred intellectual 

 

9

 William H. Herndon, Herndon’s Lincoln 

(Springfield, Illinois: The Herndon’s Lincoln 

Publishing Company, 1888), vol. 1, p. 18. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Part I.A Historical Background & Context 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.A.4 

pursuits, even though he probably had in all 

only one year of formal schooling. 

Abraham’s younger brother Thomas was 

born in the Knob Creek cabin, presumably 

two or three years after Abe’s birth. 

Thomas died in infancy and was buried in 

the nearby Redmon Cemetery, because the 

Lincoln family did not own the Knob Creek 

land. 

Thomas Lincoln had tried to buy the Knob 

Creek farm from Lindsey in 1815 but was 

unsuccessful.10 That same year landowner 

George Lindsey, Lincoln, and nine 

neighbors were served with a notice of 

ejectment from the Knob Creek land by a 

group asserting a prior claim. The 

subsequent lawsuit, settled in 1818, found in 

favor of Lindsey and his tenants. 

Meanwhile, Lincoln was still involved in 

legal proceedings regarding the Sinking 

Spring farm. Lincoln tried unsuccessfully to 

repurchase the land at Sinking Spring while 

living at Knob Creek. When it was finally 

settled in 1816 that Lincoln had no rightful 

claim to the land, the family moved to 

Indiana.11 Abraham Lincoln later wrote in a 

biographical sketch for John Scripps: 

 From this place he removed to what is now 

Spencer county Indiana, in the Autumn of 1816. 

This removal was partly on account of slavery; 

but chiefly on account of the difficulty in land 

titles in Ky.12

Life in Indiana 

Spencer County was the site of the first 

Indiana home of the Lincoln family. This 

location was chosen because the state had 

just been surveyed, and land titles were 

more secure. The family built a cabin, and 

Abraham helped to clear fields and tend 

 

10 Keith Sculle, “The Howard Family Legacy at the 

Knob Creek Farm,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln 

Association (Vol. 26, No. 2, 2005), 22. 11 Brown, 48. 

12 Zall, 9. 

crops at the new farm. Abraham’s mother 

Nancy died in October of 1818. Thomas 

Lincoln later married Sarah Bush Johnston 

from Elizabethtown in December of the 

following year. Abraham and his new 

stepmother got along very well; she is said 

to have encouraged his taste in reading. 

Neighbors remembered that he would go to 

great lengths in order to borrow a book. 

Figure A-4 Boyhood of Lincoln, 1868 

(painting by Eastman Johnson) 

In 1830, the family moved again, this time 

to Illinois. Abraham drove the team of oxen 

during the trip. He arrived in New Salem, 

Illinois, in 1831, and held a variety of jobs 

including rail splitter, storekeeper, 

postmaster, and surveyor. On a trip to New 

Orleans as a flatboatman on the Mississippi, 

he again remembered seeing slaves 

mistreated. In 1832 he enlisted as a 

volunteer for the Black Hawk War and was 

named captain of his company. 

Political Aspirations

Abraham first ran for the state legislature in 

1832 and was defeated. He ran again in 

1834 and was elected at the age of twenty-
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Part I.A Historical Background & Context 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.A.5 

five. After personal study of law and being 

admitted to the bar in 1836, he began to 

practice as a lawyer and became known for 

his skill in the courtroom. He campaigned 

successfully to have Springfield succeed 

Vandalia as the Illinois state capitol, and he 

moved there in 1837. He was re-elected to 

the Illinois state legislature in 1838 and 

1840, eventually becoming minority leader 

of the Whig party in the legislature. 

Lincoln married Mary Todd in 1842. Born 

in Lexington, Kentucky, Todd had moved to 

Springfield to live with relatives in 1839 and 

had become active in social circles. Lincoln 

focused on his law practice, and served as 

counsel for railroads, banks, insurance 

companies, and the like. Though very 

successful, Lincoln was known for his 

common sense and honesty. He and his 

wife eventually had four sons. 

Figure A-5 Lincoln, November 8, 1863 

(Library of Congress) 

Lincoln was elected to the U.S. House in 

1847 and served a single term. His votes 

recorded in those two years show him to be 

against the spread of slavery. In 1856 he 

joined the newly formed Republican Party, 

established to prevent the extension of 

slavery; he became that party’s senatorial 

candidate two years later. His 1858 debates 

with Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, who 

had called for slavery to be permitted in 

territories of the Louisiana Purchase, were 

legendary, even though Douglas won the 

election. The presidential election of 1860 

again pitted these two men against each 

other, with Lincoln on the Republican ticket. 

Lincoln frequently wrote biographical 

sketches for campaign use. In these short 

documents he often fondly recalled his 

Kentucky upbringing. In one biography, 

Lincoln wrote, “I was born and have ever 

remained in the most humble walks of 

life.”13 In a letter to Samuel Haycraft, he 

continued: 

At this time his father resided on Knob-creek, on 

the road from Bardstown Ky. To Nashville Tenn. 

At a point three, or three and a half miles South 

or South-West of Atherton’s ferry on the Rolling 

Fork. (I was born on Nolin, very much nearer 

Hodgin’s-Mill than the Knob Creek place is. My 

earliest recollection, however, is of the Knob 

Creek place.)14 

His image as a self-made man with a modest 

background stayed with him throughout his 

political campaigns. 

 

Civil War 

Lincoln was victorious in the presidential 

election, but even before his inauguration, 

seven southern states had moved to secede 

from the Union. The generally accepted 

start of the Civil War, the bombardment of 

Ft. Sumter in Charleston Harbor, began just 

after Lincoln’s inauguration March 4, 1861. 

Lincoln’s primary goal was to preserve the 

Union. Though he did not want war, he felt 

the goal was worthy of the risk. He even 

said that preservation of the Union was the 

higher priority over the issue of slavery. 

With antislavery sentiment rising, he issued 

the Emancipation Proclamation on January 

 

13 Paul M. Zall, ed., Lincoln on Lincoln (Lexington: 

The University Press of Kentucky, 1999), 25. 

14 Ibid, 9. 
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1, 1863. The Thirteenth Amendment was 

later passed to ensure slavery would never 

again be permitted. 

It is in parts of Lincoln’s eloquent 

Gettysburg Address, delivered at that 

battlefield on November 19, 1863, that one 

can see the conviction with which Lincoln 

approached the issues of slavery and the 

Union: 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers 

brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, 

conceived in liberty and dedicated to the 

proposition that all men are created equal. Now 

we are engaged in a great civil war, testing 

whether that nation, or any nation so conceived 

and so dedicated, can long endure... we here 

highly resolve that these dead shall not have died 

in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of 

freedom, and that government of the people, by 

the people, and for the people shall not perish 

from the earth. 

Lincoln managed to lead the Union in spite 

of massive war losses and won reelection in 

1864 based on the perception that victory 

was at hand. Indeed, Robert E. Lee 

surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse on 

April 9, 1865. It was only five days later, on 

Good Friday, April 14, that Lincoln was 

shot at the Ford Theater in Washington by 

John Wilkes Booth, an actor and staunch 

Confederate sympathizer. Lincoln died the 

next morning. It was the first presidential 

assassination. 

A National Hero 

Lincoln’s determination to preserve the 

Union, and his respect for basic human 

rights in freeing the slaves, earned him high 

esteem among the American people. His 

untimely death elevated his stature even 

more. The legends of his rural boyhood 

coincided with a general idealization of the 

past, brought about by technological 

advances of the late nineteenth century, the 

country’s centennial, and urban growth. 

Curious travelers began to seek out the 

supposed site of Lincoln’s birth, and local 

residents would lead them to a chimney 

where the cabin once stood at Sinking 

Spring Farm. 

Figure A-6 One of many published songs 

commemorating Lincoln, c. 1865 

(Library of Congress)

Local tradition states that the cabin of 

Lincoln’s birth was dismantled before 1860, 

and the logs were re-used in a nearby house. 

These logs, now known through further 

study to be later than the period of Lincoln’s 

birth, were sold in the 1890s and reconfigured into a cabin for exhibition at 

various sites. The Tennessee Centennial 

Exposition featured the reconstructed replica 

cabin in 1897; later the cabin was shown at 

the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in 

Buffalo, New York.15

Birthplace Memorial 

Robert J. Collier, publisher of New York’s 

Collier’s magazine, raised funds for the 

 

15 Dwight T. Pitcaithley, “Abraham Lincoln’s 

Birthplace Cabin: The Making of an American Icon” 

in Myth, Memory, and the Making of the American 

Landscape, ed. Paul A. Shackel, 244 (Gainesville: 

University Press of Florida, 2001). 
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purchase of the supposed cabin logs and the 

farm of Lincoln’s birth in order to construct 

a memorial there. He established the 

nonprofit Lincoln Farm Association to 

oversee the purchase and solicit designs for 

the memorial. 

Collier planned a grand memorial building 

and landscape. A granite and marble 

building, designed by John Russell Pope, 

consisted of one large interior room to house 

the birth cabin, although the logs actually 

had to be cut down in order to fit inside. 

President Theodore Roosevelt laid the 

cornerstone of the memorial building on the 

centennial of Lincoln’s birth, February 12, 

1909. The completed building was 

dedicated by President Taft on November 9, 

1911. 

Figure A-7 Memorial building at birthplace site, 

undated (Rinehart, National Park Service) 

The Lincoln Farm Association donated the 

site to the United States government in 

1916, along with an endowment of $50,000, 

to form Abraham Lincoln National Park. 

The War Department managed the site until 

1933, when it was acquired by the National 

Park Service. It was designated a National 

Historical Park on August 11, 1939, and 

later renamed Abraham Lincoln National 

Historic Site on September 8, 1959. The site 

was listed on the National Register of 

Historic Places on October 15, 1966. Today 

the Birthplace National Historic Site 

contains 116.5 acres, one third of the 

original Sinking Spring farm tract. 

Other Memorials 

As early as 1867, Congress authorized the 

formation of the Lincoln Memorial 

Association to raise private funds for a 

monument in Washington, but it would not 

be completed until 1922. 

Formal efforts to memorialize Lincoln in 

Kentucky began in 1904, when the 

legislature established the Lincoln 

Monument Commission. The efforts of this 

group produced a statue of the seated 

Lincoln by sculptor Adolph Weinmen, 

dedicated in Hodgenville on May 31, 1909. 

Knob Creek after the Lincolns

The rural nature of Knob Creek continued 

after Thomas Lincoln moved his family to 

Indiana in 1816. Lincoln’s landlord, George 

Lindsey, was forced by the court to sell 230 

acres of his tract to William Bush in June of 

1831. One month later, a deed is recorded 

transferring the land from Bush to Charles 

Boon. 

The heirs of Charles Boon sold two tracts of 

land at auction, containing 328 acres and 

163 acres, respectively. Purchaser Nicholas 

A. Rapier was given title to the land on 

April 20, 1850. Rapier expanded his 

holdings when the heirs of Charles Boon 

transferred an adjacent fifty acre tract to him 

on April 17, 1858. 

The heirs of Nicholas A. Rapier represent 

the next series of changes, though the land 

remained in the family. Charles H. Rapier 

purchased five-sixth interest in roughly 352 

acres on February 5, 1891, from five heirs of 

N.A. Rapier. That same day, Frank X. 

Rapier acquired five-sixth interest in an 

adjacent 158 acre tract, from five heirs of 

N.A. Rapier. Sylvester Rapier & Co. 

received one-sixth interest in 380 acres on 

September 20, 1910, from F. Boone Rapier, 

who had inherited it from N.A. Rapier. 
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John W. Crady acquired full rights to the 

380 acres in 1911 by way of a four-sixth 

interest from the heirs of N.A. Rapier on 

March 23; one-sixth interest from Sylvester 

Rapier & Co. on April 18; and one-sixth 

interest from Joseph C. Rapier on April 24. 

In May 1918, Crady purchased an adjacent 

62.5 acres from Robert and Blanche Enlow 

and G.W. and Lourena Baird. This adjacent 

tract was originally held by John J. Larue, 

and was sold after his death to James W. 

Larue on March 6, 1866. Larue sold a 

portion known as the “James Cap farm” to 

John O’Brian on July 11, 1877. O’Brian 

sold 125.86 acres to John Lavey on January 

28, 1880. Lavey passed away in May 1913, 

and his son Charles purchased a four-sixth 

interest in the land from other heirs on 

August 14, 1915, along with the one-sixth 

interest he inherited. Lavey conveyed the 

title to his five-sixth interest to Nick 

Greenwell on April 15, 1916. Greenwell 

transferred his interest on the 125.86 acres to 

Robert Enlow and G.W. Baird on January 

28, 1918. It is not known how Enlow and 

Baird received the remaining one-sixth 

interest on the 62.5 acre portion deeded to 

John W. Crady. 16

 

LaRue County was created from Hardin 

County in 1843, with Hodgenville named as 

the county seat. The Knob Creek land was 

included in the new LaRue County. The 

land was apparently always dedicated to 

farming. 

Growing Tourism 

Federal Aid Road acts were passed in 1916 

and 1921 to accommodate a growing 

number of automobiles. The turnpike 

adjacent to the farm, now Highway 31E, 

was paved in 1926, along with Highway 

31W. These easily-traveled roads brought 

increasing numbers of tourists to LaRue 

 

16 All deed information from Brown’s Report on the 

Title of Thomas Lincoln.

County and the birthplace memorial. With 

increased traffic and the reverence for 

Lincoln as strong as ever, more county 

residents began to capitalize on the Lincoln 

tourist trade. The Lincoln Trail was 

established in the 1930s as a way for 

travelers to follow the same route that the 

Lincoln family took through Kentucky, 

Indiana, and Illinois; part of the trail ran 

along Highway 31E and the Knob Creek 

farm. 

Hattie Howell Howard was one of the many 

in the area seeking to both memorialize 

Lincoln and create a career in tourism. 

Hattie already had a family connection to 

Lincoln tourism. Her brother James R. 

Howell owned a successful restaurant and 

gift shop next to the birthplace memorial 

called the Nancy Lincoln Inn, which he 

operated until his death in 1957. 

Hattie and her husband Chester bought 380 

acres containing the original Knob Creek 

farm on August 26, 1931 from John W. 

Crady, along with Crady’s adjacent 62.5 

acre tract. Chester Howard came from an 

established family that had founded 

Howardstown in 1833 and started a 

successful distillery supply store, the income 

from which provided the funds for the Knob 

Creek farm purchase. 

The Lincoln Boyhood Home 

At Knob Creek, the Howards planned a site 

that would serve both as a memorial to 

Lincoln and a business profiting from the 

growing tourist trade. They enlisted the help 

of Louis A. Warren, a historian and former 

editor for the LaRue County Herald in 

Hodgenville. Warren became an expert in 

all things Lincoln and searched local 

courthouse records for information with 

which to separate factual occurrences from 

traditional stories. The result of his efforts, 

Lincoln’s Parentage and Childhood, was 

published as a book in 1926. He argued that 

not only had the fertile bottomland of the 
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Knob Creek farm increased the prosperity of 

the Lincoln family, but that the landscape 

had had an impact on Lincoln’s 

personality.17 Warren and Howard both 

argued that the Knob Creek site was 

tremendously significant, even more so than 

the birthplace site, because of Lincoln’s 

personal remembrances of the farm. Warren 

wrote in Lincoln’s Parentage and 

Childhood: 

 The Knob Creek home on the highway from 

Louisville to Nashville was the first home that 

Abraham remembered and the home which 

exerted the greatest influence on his young life. 

This site was the most picturesque of the three 

home-sites that Thomas and Nancy had occupied, 

situated as it was between the forks of Knob 

Creek, the fertile bottoms extending from the 

home in three different directions. The knobs of 

mountainous proportions, with their steep inclines 

to the creek-bed below, offered all that nature 

could provide to challenge the adventurous spirit 

of a growing boy. 

The original Lincoln cabin at Knob Creek 

supposedly had been dismantled in the 

1870s, reportedly by Steve Thompson and 

his son Robert. In 1895 a newspaper writer 

said that the logs from the original Knob 

Creek cabin were used by Charles Rapier to 

build a stable at his farm, later washed away 

by a flood. Thus, the Howards had to start 

anew. In 1931 they dismantled a single-pen 

log cabin thought to date from the early 

1800s from the Gollaher farm, which was 

included in the land purchase. With the logs 

they constructed a cabin said to resemble 

Lincoln’s. Their neighbor Robert 

Thompson, who said that he remembered 

the Lincoln family’s cabin, assisted the 

Howards in the construction. The result was 

a one-room cabin situated near Highway 

31E, with one door and window on the east 

wall, a fireplace on the north wall, and a 

small loft accessed via a peg ladder. 

 

17 Sculle, 27. 

Figure A-8 Postcard of replica cabin, undated 

(KyGenWeb Special Collections)

The Tavern 

Construction on an adjacent building was 

begun soon after the cabin was completed. 

Meant to accommodate visitors’ requests for 

refreshments at the site, this tavern, 

reportedly built with logs taken from the 

farm’s forests, cost $4,200 to build and also 

had gas pumps to serve the tourist trade. 

Figure A-9 Tavern, undated but presumed c. 1933 

(photo courtesy of Mary Brooks Howard)

The tavern consisted of a large room on the 

first floor, with public restrooms and a 
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kitchen. Upstairs were three rooms and a 

private bathroom, which served as the 

residence of the site manager. The site was 

operated as Abraham Lincoln’s Boyhood 

Home. 

In 1934 a nightclub was established in the 

tavern. Open from late April to late 

October, live entertainment and dancing 

were events enjoyed by tourists and locals 

alike. This use provided additional revenue 

to the site, until LaRue County prohibited 

liquor sales in November 1942, at which 

time the nightclub closed. Under the 

management of Fred Howard, the tavern 

was converted to a museum and gift shop in 

the early 1950s. Howard purchased local 

historical artifacts for display in the cabin 

and tavern, including a slave trap, arrowhead 

collection, guns, tools, household artifacts 

from Lincoln’s era, and other Americana.18 

Kentucky crafts were sold in the gift shop, 

along with souvenirs. Hattie and C.F. 

Howard officially sold the site with 200 

acres to Fred Howard on October 20, 1964. 

Figure A-10 Photo of tavern bar, undated 

(photo courtesy of Mary Brooks Howard)

 

18 Ibid, 40. 

Site Managers 

The Howard family administered the site for 

seventy years, usually with the manager 

living in the quarters above the tavern. 

Hattie and Chester’s son Paul Howard 

managed the site starting in 1932, when he 

graduated from the University of Kentucky; 

he was the only manager not to live on-site. 

Helen Howard Peake, the eldest daughter of 

Hattie and Chester, managed the site in two 

separate periods between 1935 and 1949; 

Millburn Howard, the next son, also 

managed for a time. Nell and Earl W. 

Everly, the only non-family managers, came 

in 1940. Fred Howard, the youngest son of 

Hattie and Chester, began managing the site 

in 1950; his wife Mary Brooks Howard 

assumed management duties upon his death 

in 1980.

Growing Significance 

The Boyhood Home became a successful 

tourist site and began to garner recognition 

for its significance in Lincoln’s life. 

Beginning in 1942, the Boy Scouts used the 

site as a stopping point on their Lincoln 

Heritage Trail from Elizabethtown to 

Hodgenville. Stanley Kubrick’s film, Mr. 

Lincoln, was shot in part at the picturesque 

Knob Creek farm in 1952; the site also 

served to represent the Indiana frontier in 

the film. In 1958 the Boyhood Home was 

included in a re-enacted trip of the Lincoln 

family’s journey from Hodgenville to 

Indiana. 

Changing Hands 

Mary Brooks Howard, daughter-in-law of 

Hattie and Chester Howard, tried to sell the 

site in 1981 and 1985 for an asking price of 

$1 million. The highest offer received was 

$250,000. Low visitation was part of the 

reason for the attempted sale. In 1985 only 

16,283 paid visitors were recorded at the 

Boyhood Home, while 300,000 visited the 

Birthplace National Historic Site in 

Hodgenville. 
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When no better offers were made, the site 

and its contents were put up for auction. On 

January 11, 1986, a group of Howard family 

members submitted the top bid for the site 

and contents together at $120,500, after no 

bids were submitted for the property or 

contents separately. The family members 

established Lincoln Boyhood Home, Inc., 

with fifteen members. They officially reopened the site on April 1 of that year, after 

some cleaning and painting work. Fabian 

Howard, the son of Fred and Brooks, took 

over management duties. The group also 

built an open picnic pavilion and log 

restrooms. It was then estimated that 30,000 

to 40,000 people visited the Boyhood Home 

site annually. 

National Register Nomination 

Under the management of the Lincoln 

Boyhood Home, Inc., a new nomination of 

the site to the National Register of Historic 

Places was submitted in 1988. The first 

nomination attempt in 1981 had been 

unsuccessful. In that nomination, the period 

of significance had been listed as Lincoln’s 

boyhood, though the site did not actually 

contain any structures from that period. 

When the nomination was reworked to 

highlight the site’s prominent role in LaRue 

County tourism and its stature as a 

monument to Lincoln, the nomination was 

successful. The Boyhood Home site was 

officially listed on the National Register of 

Historic Places as a district on October 4, 

1988. The cabin and tavern are the two 

contributing buildings, while a modern 

pavilion (c. 1988) and shed (c. 1950s) are 

listed as non-contributing. 

 

A Secure Future 

Though the Howard family had reacquired 

the property, they were concerned about the 

long-term future of the Boyhood Home site. 

Offers to buy the site had come from 

philanthropist Philip R. Jonsson and author 

Judy Potts, but the family had refused, 

favoring a more stable preservation of the 

site, preferably with the National Park 

Service. A group called the Friends of Abe 

Lincoln formed to lobby for legislation to 

allow the Park Service to accept the property 

if it were donated. Congress authorized the 

acquisition of the site on November 6, 1998, 

with the stipulation that it be accepted by 

donation only. Various state and local 

organizations contributed funds to the cause, 

including a $500,000 appropriation in the 

Commonwealth of Kentucky’s 2001-02 

budget authorized by Governor Patton. The 

land was purchased by a group called 

Preservation of Lincoln’s Kentucky 

Heritage, Inc., for $1 million. The site was 

then donated the National Park Service as 

stipulated in the authorization. The NPS 

officially assumed management duties on 

November 6, 2001, when it became a unit of 

Abraham Lincoln National Historic Site 

(ABLI). The dedication ceremony took 

place on February 12, 2002. 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit 

The earliest letters of report written by NPS 

staff after the 2002 transfer indicated 

moisture problems in the tavern and cabin, 

and suggested stabilization work. This work 

was accomplished in September 2003. In 

October 2004, a ground-penetrating radar 

survey was undertaken in an attempt to 

locate features from the Lincoln period, such 

as privy pits, wells, trash dumps, or the 

original cabin site. Thirteen grids were 

studied by a crew from NPS SEAC, 

covering 10,017 square meters. 

Unfortunately, no significant features were 

located. 
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Figure A-11 Boyhood Home site, December 2005

In 2003 work was begun on a new General 

Management Plan for ABLI. Public 

meetings were held in November of that 

year, and the majority felt that the natural 

and historic landscape was the primary value 

at the Boyhood Home unit. Alternatives 

were published in a newsletter in fall 2004, 

with a draft GMP and environmental impact 

statement due in 2006. Alternative A is 

referred to as the “no action alternative.” 

Alternative B considers rehabilitation of the 

tavern for visitor services and park 

operations, restoration of the cabin, and 

marking of the original cabin site if it is 

located. Alternative C builds on Alternative 

B, but opens the cabin to the public, and 

adds more trails, restrooms, signs, and 

picnic tables. Alternative D considers 

removal of the tavern and replacement with 

a modern visitor information building, and 

construction of an “outdoor pioneer lifestyle 

exhibit.” 

A small office was placed at the site 

between the cabin and tavern, and is staffed 

from April through the last weekend of 

October. Though the tavern and cabin are 

both currently closed to the public, visitors 

are welcome at the site. Like Louis Warren 

and the Howard family, the NPS brochure 

for the Knob Creek site places significance 

in the landscape and location, stating that 

young Abe would have experienced a 

diversity of both nature and ideals at the 

Knob Creek Farm. 

Other Studies 

Karen Hudson conducted an architectural 

evaluation of the cabin and produced a 

report in July 1997. She concluded that it 

was largely re-configured when it was 

rebuilt in the 1930s from the Gollaher cabin. 

The replica cabin has a ridgepole and purlin 

roof, a wooden chimney, and horizontal logs 

in the gable ends. A photograph of the 

Gollaher cabin shows that it had the more 

common vertical studs in the gable ends 

resting on a log top plate. The reconstructed 

cabin walls are seven logs high, while the 

more typical height in the area is eight or 

nine logs. Further, the logs were not 

numbered when taken from the Gollaher 

cabin to permit an accurate reconstruction. 

Finally, there was no archaeological or 

photographic evidence of the Lincoln cabin 

and its precise site. Instead, Robert 

Thompson had guided the rebuilding of the 

cabin for the Howard family based on his 

memory of the Lincoln cabin. 

Figure A-12 Photograph of the Gollaher cabin, at 

right, with frame addition to left; undated 

 (Karen Hudson’s Architectural Evaluation, 

Lincoln Boyhood Home) 

Two additional studies provide a wealth of 

information about the Boyhood Home site. 

Keith Sculle’s 2005 article “The Howard 

Family Legacy at the Knob Creek Farm” 

provides insight into the daily operations of 

the site under the Howard family 
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management. In 1998 Kent Brown 

completed a study on the land titles of 

Thomas Lincoln, including information 

from tax records and court records, which 

confirm the Lincoln family’s ties to the site. 

Brown states in his opinion that the original 

cabin was on the west side of the road close 

to where the reconstruction is sited. He also 

states that the area on the opposite side of 

the road does not seem able to have 

accommodated a thirty acre farm. However, 

there are some locals that remembered the 

cabin was near a spring, and a spring is 

located near the east side of the road. 

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2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.B.1 

B. CHRONOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT AND USE 

Initial Construction and Early Operation 

Hattie and Chester Howard purchased the 

Knob Creek farm in 1928 with plans for a 

memorial to Lincoln’s boyhood on the 

property. Acting on advice from Robert 

Thompson, a local man who claimed to 

remember the original Lincoln cabin, the 

Howards dismantled a circa 1800 cabin 

elsewhere on the land to reuse its logs. This 

cabin was the original home of the Gollaher 

family, neighbors and friends of the 

Lincolns. The new cabin, erected with the 

old logs and said by Thompson to 

approximate the original Lincoln cabin in 

size and design, was completed in 1931. It 

was situated closer to the road in what was 

thought to be near its original location, and 

also to be more easily seen by travelers on 

Highway 31E. 

Figure B-1 Detail of Boyhood Home postcard, 

undated (KyGenWeb Special Collections) 

The rebuilt cabin walls were seven logs 

high, with a central door on the east wall and 

small window opening on the same wall, 

near the north corner. A log chimney was 

on the exterior of the north wall. Bits of 

stone and chinking filled the spaces between 

the logs in the traditional manner. The gable 

roof was constructed in a ridgepole and 

purlin manner, with logs forming the gable 

ends. Wood shingles covered the roof. 

Inside, the replica cabin consisted of one 

room with a small wood-plank loft at the 

north end. The logs and chinking were 

exposed on the interior walls, as was the 

roof framing. The floor was wood. The 

firebox and surround were constructed of 

rough stone, with a limestone hearth; the 

mantel was wood. (See Figure B-3) Round 

pegs embedded in the east wall between the 

window and door served as a ladder for 

access to the loft. The cabin was furnished 

with local period furniture and accessories to 

approximate an interior from Lincoln’s era. 

Overall, the cabin was interpreted as a close 

replica of the original Lincoln cabin. 

Karen Hudson’s architectural evaluation of 

the cabin, completed in July 1997 

(Appendix D), notes the differences between 

the replica cabin and the Gollaher cabin. 

Included in the report is a ca. 1920s photo of 

the single-pen Gollaher cabin in its original 

form, though then forming a rear ell to a 

later frame house. The photograph indicates 

the original cabin had an exterior chimney 

of stone and a stone pier foundation. Also, 

there was a door in the center of the long 

façade, but no windows. Further, the photo 

seems to indicate that the upper gable ends 

were frame rather than log. These features 

were not retained when the logs were reused 

for the replica cabin by the Howard family. 

Though the Howard family sought to create 

a replica of the Lincoln cabin, not all 
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Figure B-2 Postcard of cabin with tavern in background, undated (KyGenWeb Special Collections) 

materials and methods used in their 

construction were authentic to the period of 

Lincoln’s boyhood. The cabin is clearly a 

1930s construction, an attempt to convey the 

basic idea of Lincoln’s boyhood cabin, 

rather than an authentic reconstruction to 

1811-16. For example, boards cut by a 

circular saw were used in the door and in the 

window shutter, and probably the flooring as 

well; however, the circular saw did not 

arrive in rural Kentucky until the 1830s, 

well after the period of Lincoln’s boyhood. 

Also, modern cut steel nails were used in the 

1930s work. In addition, door and window 

hardware was cut from modern milled steel, 

not forged iron. 

In addition to these technological 

differences, some features, such as the floor, 

reflect a 1930s interpretation of what the 

cabin may have been like. The family’s 

original cabin could have had a wood floor 

or simple earthen floor. In early Kentucky 

cabins puncheon floors were also used, with 

thick hewn planks as floorboards resting 

either on joists or directly on the ground. A 

Kentucky letter of 1791 states that 

“puncheon floors are all right as long as it is 

cold enough to let them be covered with 

furs.”1

 

Figure B-3 Howard Family photo of cabin interior, 

undated but presumed c. 1933 (courtesy of Mary 

Brooks Howard) 

Shortly after the cabin was completed, the 

Howards began construction on a log tavern 

building located adjacent to and south of the 

cabin. The tavern first served food and 

drinks to visitors to the site. A gas station at 

the tavern also served tourists traveling on 

the highway. The site was operated as 

 

1

 Carl R. Lounsbury, An Illustrated Glossary of Early 

Southern Architecture & Landscape (New York and 

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 297; quoting 

Jillson’s Tales of the Dark and Bloody Ground. 
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Abraham Lincoln’s Boyhood Home, and the 

manager lived in the second floor of the 

tavern. A nightclub opened in the tavern, 

and the site became known as a place for 

local entertainment in addition to 

interpretation of Lincoln’s boyhood. When 

the county became dry, the tavern served as 

a museum and gift shop. 

At some time prior to 1950, when Fred and 

Brooks Howard began managing the site, 

the firebox and surround were rebuilt in 

limestone. (See Figure B-1) 

Figure B-4 Howard Family photo of cabin interior, 

undated but presumed c. 1933 (courtesy of Mary 

Brooks Howard) 

Maintenance 

In the mid-1950s, site manager Fred Howard 

and his wife Brooks installed a wood shingle 

roof on the cabin. Just prior to Fred’s death 

in 1980, new wood shingle roofing was 

again installed; Clorox was reportedly used 

to kill moss on the roof. Brooks Howard 

managed the site after her husband’s death, 

and sold the site at auction to a group of 

other Howard family members in 1986. 

The new generation of Howard family 

members formed the Lincoln Boyhood 

Home, Inc. During their operation from 

1986 to 2001, the chimney logs were 

replaced twice, using square oak logs taken 

from other local log cabins. The bottom log 

at the east elevation was also replaced. 

Around 1990, another log in the cabin was 

replaced with a new oak log. On a yearly 

basis the family would take mud from the 

creek and apply a new layer of chinking to 

the cabin. 

Part of the floor inside was taken up for 

termite treatment and shoring. The family 

placed a glass jar from the gift shop under 

the floor, with a note inside suggesting that 

more work was done to the cabin than had 

actually taken place. This was done as a 

prank, with the family thinking it would be 

found long in the future.2

2001: National Park Service 

Stabilization of the cabin was a priority of 

the National Park Service after their 

acquisition of the property in late 2001. In 

September 2003, temporary shoring was 

installed. Posts were placed along the cabin 

exterior. Inside a new wood framework was 

erected to support the walls. In order to 

install this supplemental framing, the 

original hand-hewn wood floor and floor 

joists were removed. 

The flooring and floor joists are presently in 

storage inside the tavern’s storage room. 

They are numbered, in accordance with the 

compliance document, but no drawing has 

been located in park files, according to 

ABLI Park Ranger Jenny Jones. The floor 

was reportedly in poor condition before 

removal.

Figure B-5 View of added bracing inside cabin

 

2

 Milburn Howard, in interview with Joseph K. 

Oppermann, February 28, 2006. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Part I.B Chronology of Development and Use 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.B.4 

Chronology 

1778 Thomas Lincoln, Abraham’s father, is born in Virginia to Abraham and 

Bersheba Lincoln. 

1782 Thomas Lincoln moves to Jefferson County, Kentucky, with his parents. 

c. 1796 Thomas Lincoln moves to Elizabethtown, Kentucky. 

 

1801 Thomas Lincoln purchases and settles on land in Cumberland County, 

Kentucky. 

1806 Thomas Lincoln marries Nancy Hanks. 

1807 February 10 Sarah Lincoln is born to Thomas and Nancy Lincoln. 

1808 December Thomas Lincoln purchases and relocates to the Sinking Spring farm in 

 LaRue County, Kentucky. 

1809 February 12 Abraham Lincoln is born at Sinking Spring farm to Thomas and Nancy 

 Lincoln. 

1811 A dispute over the Sinking Spring land title forces the Lincoln family to 

move to Knob Creek farm when Abraham is two years old. Thomas 

Lincoln did not buy this land; rather, he leased 30 acres from the owner, 

George Lindsey. 

c. 1811 A son, Thomas, is born to Thomas and Nancy Lincoln; he dies in infancy. 

1815 Thomas Lincoln unsuccessfully tries to buy Knob Creek farm. Litigation 

regarding the title to Sinking Spring continues. 

George Lindsey, Thomas Lincoln, and other leaseholders are served with a 

notice of ejection from the Knob Creek land by people in Pennsylvania 

with a prior claim. The matter goes to court and Lindsey prevails. The 

Lincolns are allowed to stay as the “tenant in possession.” 

1816 Lincoln family leaves Knob Creek farm after the court finds that Thomas 

has no claim to the Sinking Spring land. The Lincolns and their two 

children move to Spencer County, Indiana, where recent surveying has 

made land titles more stable. 

1818 October 5 Nancy Lincoln dies. 

1819 December Thomas Lincoln marries Sarah Bush Johnston. 

1830 The Lincoln family moves to Illinois. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Part I.B Chronology of Development and Use 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.B.5 

1831 Abraham makes his home in New Salem, Illinois, where he reads law and 

 keeps a store. 

1832 Lincoln is defeated in his first bid for the state legislature. 

1833 The Howard family founds Howardstown, Kentucky, where they own a 

store for distillery supplies. 

1834 Lincoln is elected to the Illinois state legislature. 

1836 Abraham Lincoln is admitted to the bar, having been completely self- 

 taught. 

1837 Lincoln moves to Springfield, Illinois. 

1847 Lincoln begins a single term in the United States House of 

Representatives. 

1854 The Missouri Compromise is repealed, heightening the growing tension 

 regarding slavery. 

1856 Lincoln joins the newly formed Republican Party. 

1858 Lincoln is nominated as Republican candidate for the Senate from Illinois. 

He debates Democratic opponent Stephen Douglas over the slavery issue. 

1860 Lincoln is nominated as the Republican presidential candidate. 

 December 20 South Carolina is the first state to secede from the Union. 

1861 January- Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas secede 

 March 4 from the Union. 

 March 4 Abraham Lincoln assumes office as President. 

 March 4- Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia secede from the 

 November Union. 

1863 January 1 The Emancipation Proclamation is issued. 

c. 1865 Tradition states that Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace cabin at Sinking Spring 

farm is dismantled, and the logs are used in a nearby house. 

1865 April 9 Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union General Ulysses 

 S. Grant at the Appomattox courthouse in Virginia. 

 April 14 President Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth on Good Friday at Ford’s 

Theater in Washington, D.C. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Part I.B Chronology of Development and Use 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.B.6 

April 15 Abraham Lincoln dies in a house across the street from the theater. 

1867 Congress authorizes Lincoln Memorial Association to raise funds for a 

 monument in Washington, D.C. 

c. 1870 Tradition states that Lincoln’s Knob Creek cabin is torn down. 

1874 The first Lincoln monument—a tomb marker—is dedicated in Springfield, 

Illinois. 

1889-1890 Several books on the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln are published. 

1896 A cabin reputed to be the original Sinking Spring cabin is exhibited at 

Tennessee Centennial Exposition and New York’s Central Park. 

1904 The Lincoln Monument Commission is established by the Kentucky 

 legislature. 

1905 Robert Collier purchases the Sinking Spring farm at a public sale and 

establishes a nonprofit Lincoln Farm Association to construct a memorial 

there. 

1909 February 12 President Theodore Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the memorial 

building designed by John Russell Pope at Lincoln’s birthplace site. 

May 31 A statue of Lincoln by sculptor Adolph Weinmen is dedicated in 

Hodgenville, Kentucky. 

1911 November 9 The completed Memorial Building is dedicated by President William 

Howard Taft. 

1920 James R. Howell builds Nancy Lincoln Inn next to the birthplace site and 

 memorial building. 

1922 The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., is dedicated. 

1926 Highway 31E opens and increases tourism in Kentucky. 

Historian Louis A. Warren publishes a book on the life of Abraham 

 Lincoln. 

1928 Hattie Howell Howard and her husband Chester purchase 380 acres 

including the Knob Creek farm. 

1930 The Howards move to a farmhouse across from Knob Creek site. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Part I.B Chronology of Development and Use 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.B.7 

1931 The Howard family constructs a replica of Abraham Lincoln’s boyhood 

home cabin using logs from the Gollaher cabin under the guidance of 

Robert Thompson, who remembers the original cabin. They begin to 

operate the Knob Creek site as a tourist destination known as Abraham 

Lincoln’s Boyhood Home. 

Because visitors to the cabin frequently request refreshments, the 

Howards begin construction on a tavern. 

1932 Son Paul Howard begins to manage the Boyhood Home property. 

1933 The birthplace Memorial Building at Sinking Spring Farm is acquired by 

the National Park Service. 

The tavern, including a restaurant and gas station, opens to the public. 

1934 A nightclub with live entertainment and dancing opens in the tavern. 

1935 Helen Howard Peake takes over management of the Boyhood Home site. 

1939 August 11 Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace is named a National Historical Park. 

1940 The Boyhood Home is managed by Nell and Earl W. Everly. 

1942 Boy Scouts begin to use the site as a halfway stop on the Lincoln Heritage 

Trail from Elizabethtown to Hodgenville, Kentucky. 

1942 The nightclub is closed when liquor sales are prohibited in LaRue County. 

prior to 1950 Firebox is redesigned. 

1950 Fred Howard takes over management. The tavern is converted to a 

museum and gift shop. 

Wood shingle roofing is installed on the cabin. 

 

1952 Stanley Kubrick films part of Mr. Lincoln, a biographical movie, at the 

 Boyhood Home site. 

1958 The Boyhood Home is included in reenacted trip of the Lincoln’s journey 

 from Hodgenville, Kentucky, to Indiana. 

1959 September 8 Lincoln’s birthplace is named Abraham Lincoln National Historic Site. 

1966 October 11 Abraham Lincoln National Historic Site is listed on the National Register 

 of Historic Places. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Part I.B Chronology of Development and Use 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.B.8 

1980 Fred Howard’s wife, Brooks, begins management of the Boyhood Home 

after his death. 

Split-oak shingle roof is installed on the cabin. 

1981 Knob Creek’s nomination to National Register fails because the site 

contains no original buildings from declared period of significance, 

Lincoln’s Boyhood. 

Brooks Howard unsuccessfully tries to sell the site, asking $1 million. 

1985 16,283 paid visitors come to the Boyhood Home, while 300,000 visit the 

nearby birthplace. 

1986 January 11 The Boyhood Home site and contents are put up for auction; a group of 

Howard family members submits the highest bid of $120,500 for both. 

April 1 The Boyhood Home reopens. Julian Howard, Fred and Brooks’ son, 

manages the site. 

Part of the floor is taken up for termite treatment. 

Several chimney logs are replaced with oak logs salvaged from other local 

log cabins. 

The chinking is touched-up with mud from the creek on a yearly basis. 

1988 Lincoln’s Boyhood Home is listed on the National Register of Historic 

Places for its significance to LaRue County tourism. 

A picnic pavilion and log restrooms are built on site. 

1990 A log is replaced at the cabin with a salvaged oak log. 

2001 Preservation of Lincoln’s Kentucky Heritage, Inc. acquires the Boyhood 

Home. 

November 6 The National Park Service takes over management of the site, now the 

Boyhood Home unit of Abraham Lincoln Birthplace NHS. 

2002 February 12 The formal ceremony of transfer to the NPS is held at the Boyhood Home. 

2003 September The cabin and tavern are stabilized. The wood floor is removed in the 

cabin for installation of supplemental framing. 

The log pavilion is torn down. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Part I.B Chronology of Development and Use 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.B.9 

2004 October A ground-penetrating radar survey of the site is unsuccessful in locating 

Lincoln-era features. 

2006 A new General Management Plan draft is discussed at its final public 

hearing in May prior to publication. 

LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit Part I.C Physical Description 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.C.1 

C. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

General Description 

The Lincoln Boyhood Home was erected to 

resemble the side-gabled, single-pen log 

dwelling that Abraham Lincoln is believed 

to have lived in as a young boy. The replica 

cabin was constructed in 1931-32 using 

materials from a ca. 1800 log cabin that was 

part of a nearby farm when the Lincoln 

family lived at Knob Creek. The cabin was 

built on what was believed to be the 

approximate location of the site of the log 

cabin in which Lincoln lived until he was 

seven. 

Figure C-1 Cabin east elevation 

The building is constructed of hewn logs 

with the half-dovetail (also known as 

chamfer-and-notch) method of joinery and 

mud chinking; it is set on a stone foundation 

measuring approximately 14′-10′′ by 18′-8′′. 

On the main (east) façade is a central 

entrance with a vertical board door and one 

window opening with a hinged verticalboard shutter. The side-gabled, woodshingle roof is framed with round log purlins 

set parallel to the ridge. A prominent log and 

mud chimney extends from the north gable 

end. 

Figure C-2 Half dovetail 

(chamfer-and-notch) corner 

Members of the Howard Family annually 

removed clay-rich mud from the creek to 

chink the logs. Twice between 1986 and 

2001 they replaced logs in the cabin and 

chimney, using logs scavenged from other 

log buildings in the area. The larger logs at 

the base of the chimney were especially 

prone to deterioration and replacement; the 

smaller logs of the upper sections are cedar 

and are less susceptible to insects and decay. 

Figure C-3 Cabin northeast oblique 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit Part I.C Physical Description 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.C.2 

Vertical bracing was added in 2003 to 

stabilize the building and chimney. Inside is 

an unpartitioned room with exposed logs 

and roof framing, a dirt floor, and rough-cut 

stone fireplace with stone hearth. 

Figure C-4 Cabin southeast oblique, added vertical 

bracing noted 

Construction Characteristics 

Structural Systems 

Foundation: Blocks of limestone extend a 

few inches above grade forming a 

foundation for the logs to rest on out of 

contact with the damp earth. 

Exterior Walls: The logs are hewn and 

assembled in the half-dovetail (also called 

chamfer-and-notch) method of construction. 

Samples from several logs identified both 

white oak (Quercus alba) and American 

beech (Fagus grandifolia) wood. 

Small sections of wood are set in a diagonal 

pattern as filler between the logs. A mud 

rich in clay is used for chinking. 

Floor Framing: There is currently no 

framing at floor level. The floor framing 

was removed in 2003 to install interior 

supplemental framing. 

Figure C-5 Detail of logs and chinking 

Roof Framing: An unhewn log 

approximately 5′′ to 6′′ in diameter serves as 

the ridge pole. Unhewn logs ranging from 

approximately 4′′ to 8′′ in diameter are set 

parallel to the ridge pole and act as roof 

purlins. This roof framing supports a splitoak, shingle roof installed in 1980. The 

shingles are about 2′-0′′ in length and vary in 

width. 

Supplemental Framing: In 2003, because of 

the deteriorated condition of the structure, 

NPS added a supplemental framing of 6′′ by 

6′′ members to both the interior and exterior 

of the cabin, as well as the chimney base. 

This temporary support system remains in 

place. 

Exterior Features 

Roof and Rainwater Collection/Dispersal: 

The roofing material is described above as 

part of the roof framing. There are no 

gutters or downspouts. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit Part I.C Physical Description 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.C.3 

Chimney: The chimney is made of logs and 

large amounts of mud chinking. The base of 

the chimney is rectilinear, measuring 5′-0′′

by 7′-6′′. Hewn logs form the base. As the 

chimney rises in height, it gradually narrows 

to about 1′-6′′ by 1′-6′′ in section. The logs 

change from hewn to unhewn and become 

shorter in length and smaller in girth. Small 

areas of modern Portland cement mortar are 

used as chinking at the chimney. 

Figure C-6 Chimney base detail 

Walls: The exposed hewn logs and mud 

chinking constitute the exterior appearance 

of the walls. 

Doorways: There is one doorway. It is 

centered on the east elevation. The boardand-batten door is assembled of salvaged 

boards, circular sawn, of varying widths and 

joined by wire nails. The battens measure 1 

3⁄4′′ by 2′′. The door measures 3′-0′′ wide by 

5′-6′′ tall by 1′′ thick. Plank boards 

measuring 1′′ by 4 1⁄2′′ form the interior side 

casing; there is no head casing. 

Figure C-7 Door on east elevation 

Windows: There is a single window 

opening. It is on the east elevation north of 

the doorway. There are no glazed lights. 

The wooden shutter, measuring 2′-2′′ wide 

by 2′-4′′ high, is made of salvaged boards. 

The shutter is mounted on two interior, 

wooden pivot hinges. 

Figure C-8 Window on east elevation 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit Part I.C Physical Description 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.C.4 

Interior Features 

Room 101: The cabin consists of a single 

room. It measures approximately 13′-3′′ by 

17′- 8′′. 

Figure C-9 Room 101, looking north 

• Flooring: The ground inside the cabin 

currently serves as the floor. The tavern’s 

storage room holds the parts of the wood 

flooring system that was removed.

• Walls: The hewn logs and chinking of the 

walls are exposed. No finishes are applied.

• Doors: The one exterior door is described 

above. There are no interior doorways. 

• Windows: The one window is described 

above. 

Figure C-10 Room 101, interior view of door and 

window on east wall 

• Ceiling: The exposed roof purlins and 

ridgepole and the underside of the split 

shingle roof that they support constitute the 

ceiling of this room. The distance from top 

of floor (ground) to top of wall plate is 8′-

11′′. The distance from top of wall plate to 

bottom of ridgepole is another 4′-7′′. 

• Baseboards: There are no baseboards in 

this room.

• Finishes: There are no applied decorative 

or protective finishes.

• Mechanical Systems: There are no 

mechanical systems present.

• Electrical Systems: Three tear-drop 

design lights are mounted on the east wall, 

above the door.

• Plumbing Systems: There is no plumbing 

system.

• Other Features: A large stone fireplace 

and hearth are at the center of the north wall. 

The hearth is 7′-3′′ wide by 3′-0′′ deep. The 

mantle measures 7′-3′′ across and 5′-0′′ tall; 

the top 2 3⁄4′′ in height are the thickness of a 

11′′ inch deep wood mantel shelf. The 

mantel is made of coursed rubble of roughly 

squared limestone blocks. The arched 

firebox opening is 3′-9′′ deep and 3′-10′′ tall, 

a steel strap providing reinforcement for the 

arch. 

Several salvaged boards are positioned 

between the top and second log down on the 

east and west walls. The boards are grouped 

together at the north end of the room near 

the fireplace. The purpose of this grouping 

is to represent a sleeping loft. 

Near the sleeping loft on the east wall are 

three round pegs inserted in the logs. Each 

peg measures about 1 5⁄8′′ in diameter and 

extends about 1′-1 1⁄2′′. Grouped vertically, 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit Part I.C Physical Description 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page I.C.5 

they represent a ladder to access the sleeping 

loft. 

Physical Condition 

The structural stability of the cabin and its 

chimney are very poor. The added 

reinforcement of 2003 is essential to keeping 

both from collapsing. A number of logs are 

severely deteriorated, especially those near 

ground level. Proper repair and treatment 

will likely require either complete 

dismantling or extensive shoring to replace 

damaged lower logs. 

Figure C-11 Room 101, looking south 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Part II.A Introduction 

 2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page II.A.1 

PART II: TREATMENT & USE

A. INTRODUCTION

 

The rural countryside where Abraham 

Lincoln spent part of his youth appears in 

the early twenty-first century much the same 

as it did when young Lincoln was there two 

centuries earlier. It is a rolling landscape of 

thick woods punctuated with the open 

meadows of small farms. 

Since his assassination in 1865, Lincoln has 

held a special place of fascination in the 

American psyche. He was born of modest 

means and largely self-educated. He had 

had a moderately successful career in law 

and politics. He joined in 1856 the newly 

formed Republican Party established to 

oppose the spread of slavery. He became 

that party’s senatorial candidate two years 

later. He lost, but his debates with Stephen 

Douglas became legendary. Then, 

improbably, in 1860 the awkwardly tall 

attorney from Illinois became president at an 

important crossroads in his country’s 

history. The country soon fell, perhaps 

inevitably, into a terrible civil war. Lincoln 

issued the Emancipation Proclamation and 

prevailed upon the Union troops to fight 

until the Union was secure. His oratory was 

simple, direct, and morally powerful, in 

retrospect some of the finest prose ever 

written by any American. Lincoln was and 

is still considered to have been one of the 

country’s most important leaders. 

By the second quarter of the twentieth 

century, the automobile had become the 

preferred means of travel in America. Its 

widespread popularity made possible 

frequent movement of large numbers of 

people for purely recreational purposes over 

much longer distances than ever imagined. 

Automobile tourism became a major 

economic activity. 

People were arriving from all over the 

country to visit the birthplace of Abraham 

Lincoln near Hodgenville, Kentucky. 

Robert J. Collier, publisher of Collier’s

magazine, had raised the money to purchase 

farm of Lincoln’s birth, along with what 

were thought at the time to be the original 

cabin logs. He had established a nonprofit 

group to acquire the property and solicit 

designs for a memorial. An impressive 

design of John Russell Pope, one of the 

nation’s most prominent architects, had been 

erected. The new memorial complex had 

then been given to the federal government in 

1916. 

It was in this atmosphere of adulation and 

economic opportunity that the Howard 

family purchased the site of Lincoln’s 

boyhood home in 1931. The Lincoln cabin 

had long since disappeared but an elderly 

neighbor felt certain he remembered it. And 

the site hadn’t seen much development since 

young Lincoln lived there. In addition, the 

property adjoined a major highway. 

The Howard family took the logs from 

another cabin on their new property, one that 

was believed to date to the same period as 

the Lincoln occupancy, and guided by the 

memory of the neighbor, recreated a 

representation of the Lincoln boyhood cabin 

for all to see. Soon, they added the tavern to 

serve refreshments to visitors. The site 

manager lived in an apartment upstairs over 

the tavern. Year after year, the family 

members made repairs to the cabin. As 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Part II.A Introduction 

 2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page II.A.2 

people came to see the cabin memorial, they 

stopped for refreshments and souvenirs that 

economically sustained the Howard family. 

This almost symbiotic relationship of cabin 

and tavern was critical to their mutual 

survival from the beginning and continued 

until the property was deeded to the federal 

government in 2001. The significance of 

this cultural phenomenon of tourism was 

formally recognized when the property was 

listed in the National Register of Historic 

Places in 1988. 

 

LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Part II.B Ultimate Treatment and Use 

 2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page II.B.1 

B. ULTIMATE TREATMENT AND USE 

The undeveloped farmland at Knob Creek, 

much as it was when the Lincoln family 

lived on the land, attracted tourists and was 

a critical factor in the decision to promote 

the property for tourism. 

Figure B-1 View to fields west of tavern 

The “Lincoln cabin” is a representation of 

the one Abraham Lincoln would have 

known, assembled from the parts, 

sometimes modified, from another cabin and 

repaired over time with parts salvaged from 

still other cabins. The methods of salvage 

have been driven by utilitarian purpose 

without the documentation commonly 

associated with such disassembly by today’s 

standards. The choice of location and the 

design for the reconstructed memorial cabin 

was likewise based on a casual 

understanding of the original, without 

benefit of professional investigations. 

Furthermore, the resultant construction 

incorporated the salvaged pieces using 

1930s building techniques and materials. 

The original purpose of the tavern was 

economical: to tap into the occasion of the 

tourist visit by providing additional reasons 

to linger. The tavern offered refreshments 

and curios for purchase, and historical 

“artifacts” of farm living for viewing. A 

secondary use was living quarters, the 

upstairs being a residence for site personnel. 

Because this was a family owned and 

operated business, the residents were 

typically members of the family. Common 

1930s materials and techniques were utilized 

here also, including fiberboard panels and 

logs in the round. 

The two buildings are tangible artifacts of 

the popular 1930s interpretation of Lincoln’s 

life as a young boy and the development of 

tourism focused on this important historical 

figure. 

Both buildings retain a large amount of 

building material from the initial 1930s 

construction. Both buildings and the site 

have a considerable amount of 

documentation concerning the appearance of 

the complex at that time. Opportunities 

remain for additional investigation and 

testing of the building fabric of both 

buildings in order to gain an even better 

understanding of this period. Considering 

these circumstances, the following 

recommendation is made. 

The Recommended Ultimate Treatment 

includes the exterior and interior 

restoration of the cabin to its original 

1930s appearance; the exterior 

restoration of the tavern to its original 

1930s appearance; the interior restoration 

of the tavern’s principal public room, the 

hall, to its original 1930s appearance, to 

use as a visitors reception center; and the 

rehabilitation of the tavern’s other 

interior spaces for ancillary support areas 

and staff offices. 

This approach would have the following 

advantages: 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Part II.B Ultimate Treatment and Use 

 2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page II.B.2 

• Interprets the buildings and site as 

tangible cultural resources in a manner 

that is consistent with the property’s 

nomination to the National Register of 

Historic Places. The cabin is 

representative of early, twentieth-century 

Americans’ understanding of what life 

must have been like for a young 

Abraham Lincoln. The complex is 

representative of burgeoning, early 

twentieth-century tourism based on the 

fascination with a nationally important 

historical personage; 

• The large size of the hall allows the 

tavern building to reflect its 1930s 

characteristics while incorporating other 

functions within the space, including 

current-day interpretations of young 

Lincoln’s life as well as the country’s 

evolving fascination with historical 

personages, and the advent of 

automobile tourism; 

• The hall also lends itself well to the 

inclusion of a visitors’ information desk, 

gift shop, and other important functions 

of a modern park; 

• The abundantly large restrooms lend 

themselves well for rehabilitation as 

modern ADA-accessible restrooms; 

• The abundantly large original kitchen 

can accommodate rehabilitation for 

modern staffing and ancillary functions, 

such as a handicapped accessible 

workstation, staff break room, and a 

food-preparation area for the occasional 

hosting of catered public events in the 

hall; 

• The large second-floor area lends itself 

well for rehabilitation for staff offices, 

staff restroom, and ancillary spaces; 

• The open, undeveloped space in front of 

and around the tavern and cabin is 

available for interpretation more 

consistent with the 1930s characteristics 

of the complex. 

Figure B-2 Postcard of Boyhood Home site, undated 

There would be disadvantages to this 

approach as well: 

• Presents a less than pristine appearance 

of the Lincoln farm site. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit Part II.C Requirements for Treatment 

 2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page II.C.1 

C. REQUIREMENTS FOR TREATMENT 

The Tavern and Lincoln Boyhood Cabin are 

addressed as a single complex in the park’s 

Draft General Management Plan. 

The National Park Service Cultural 

Resources Management Guideline (DO – 

28) requires planning for the protection of 

cultural resources on park property. 

In addition, Section 106 of the National 

Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) mandates 

that federal agencies, including the National 

Park Service, take into account the effects of 

their actions on properties listed or eligible 

for listing in the National Register of 

Historic Places and give the Advisory 

Council on Historic Preservation a 

reasonable opportunity to comment. 

Treatment of the building and site are to be 

guided by The Secretary of Interior’s 

Standards for Historic Preservation 

Projects, the Americans with Disability Act, 

and the International Building Code. 

Threats to public life, safety and welfare are 

to be addressed; however, because this is an 

historic building, alternatives to full 

legislative and code compliance are 

recommended where compliance would 

needlessly compromise the integrity of the 

historic building. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Part II.D Alternatives for Treatment 

 2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page II.D.1 

D. ALTERNATIVES FOR TREATMENT 

In addition to the Ultimate Treatment 

discussed in Section II.B above, two other 

alternatives are discussed below. 

Each alternative corresponds to an 

alternative presented in the Draft GMP. 

Alternative #1: Restore the exterior of 

the cabin to its original 1930s appearance, 

without public access to the interior. 

This approach would have the following 

advantages: 

• Interprets the building at a slightly lower 

financial cost. 

This approach would have the following 

disadvantages as well: 

• Minimizes the opportunity to spotlight 

those 1930s social trends of tourism and 

interest in historical personages, trends 

which are not now well-interpreted at 

many historic sites. 

Alternative #2: Move the cabin into a 

new outdoor pioneer lifestyle exhibit at 

the Boyhood Home site. 

This approach has no clear advantages. 

There would be significant disadvantages to 

this approach: 

• Adversely affects cultural resources 

which contribute to the property’s listing 

in the National Register of Historic 

Places; 

• Minimizes the opportunity to interpret 

the 1930s social trends which produced 

the cabin and tavern; 

• Disrupts the traditional functional 

relationship between the cabin and the 

tavern. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit Part II.E Recommendations 

 2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page II.E.1 

E. RECOMMENDATIONS 

General 

It is important to think of the cabin, tavern, 

and site as an inseparable complex, 

developed in the 1930s to operate as a single 

unit. These characteristics are inherent in 

the property’s listing in the National 

Register of Historic Places. 

Figure E-1 Current setting of tavern and cabin, 

2005 

Whatever the chosen treatment(s) for the site 

and the buildings, it is recommended that 

prior to the commencement of work, the 

complex be fully documented in accordance 

with Historic American Building Survey 

(HABS) and Historic American Landscape 

Survey (HALS) standards. 

Also, dendrochronology studies should be 

conducted for the log walls of both 

buildings. Oral histories hold that the logs 

of the tavern were harvested on site at the 

time of construction; the logs of the replica 

cabin taken from the Gollaher family’s cabin 

date to the early nineteenth century; and 

later repairs used salvaged cabin logs of 

unknown dates. Documentation of both log 

ages and wood species would be most 

valuable to compare with extant information 

and to prepare for future repairs and 

interpretation. 

It is further recommended that a Historic 

Paint and Finish Analysis be completed for 

each building, both to document the finishes 

before they incur any additional damage 

during repairs and to guide the further 

restoration and interpretive efforts. 

Finally, oral histories should be collected 

soon. There are quite a few family members 

who can shed light on the operation of the 

cabin and tavern. However, several are 

advanced in age and others are in poor 

health. 

Site 

As it is adapted for use as a national park 

facility, it would be desirable to promote an 

immediate setting for the cabin and tavern 

that resembles the original one of the 1930s. 

This would be the setting most compatible 

with the interpretive period of the buildings. 

Figure E-2 Cabin and tavern looking west, 

September 23, 1933 (photo by Beuer) 

Cabin 

To achieve the recommended Ultimate 

Treatment the following actions should be 

taken: 

• If dismantling is necessary for repair, 

prior to dismantling for repairs, prepare 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit Part II.E Recommendations 

 2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page II.E.2 

measured drawings, assign a unique 

number to each building part and mark; 

• Install replacement logs of same specie, 

cut, and joinery as the original 1930s 

construction; 

• As part of the repairs to the chimney, 

install replacement logs and smaller 

limbs of the same species, respectively, 

method of cuts, and joinery as the 

original 1930s construction. Remove 

Portland cement-based chinking and 

replace with mud-based chinking to 

match the original of the 1930s; 

• Preserve existing limestone firebox 

surround until further study can 

determine whether it was installed 

during the period of significance; 

Figure E-3 Cabin northeast oblique, 2005 

• Remove existing wood shingle roofing 

and install new historically appropriate 

wood shingle roofing; 

• Remove 1950s era tear-drop lighting 

from the interior and install visually 

unobtrusive lighting; 

• Reinstall wood floor joists and flooring 

removed in 2003 to install temporary 

shoring. Repair damaged areas with 

Dutchmen and replace any missing areas 

in kind; 

• Apply finishes as determined by the 

Historic Paint and Finishes Analysis. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY References 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • References-i 

REFERENCES 

Primary Sources 

“Auction: Selling Lincoln’s Boyhood Home.” The LaRue County Herald News, 9 Jan. 1986. 

Buono, Jon. 21 April, 2003. National Park Service, Southeast Regional Office. letter to Jim 

 Creech and Dan Scheidt. 

Eddins, Mary Jean.“Celebration Marks Deed Transfer.” Land, Air and Water, Spring 2002. 

Eddins, Mary Jean. “Two Projects Become a Reality.” Land, Air and Water, Winter 2002. 

General Management Plan/Alternatives Newsletter. National Park Service, U.S Department of 

 the Interior, Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site, Kentucky. Issue 2, Fall 

 2004. 

“Historic Property To Go Under Gavel.” The LaRue County Herald News, 9 Jan. 1986. 

Howard, Mary Brooks. Interview by Joseph K. Oppermann, FAIA. Frankfort, KY. 28 February 

 2006. 

Howard, Millburn. Interview by Joseph K. Oppermann, FAIA. City, KY. 02 and 10 March 

 2006. 

“Lincoln National Helps Fund Purchase of Boyhood Home.” The LaRue County Herald News, 

 12 Dec. 2001. 

Manning, Stacy S. “New Haven Receives County Occupational, Recreational Funds.” The 

 Kentucky Standard, 28 March. 2003. 

McDonald, Bob. “Howard Family Members pay $120,500 to Keep Lincoln Property in Family; 

 Many are Surprised at Low Sale Price.” The LaRue County Herald News, 20 Jan. 1986. 

Raisor, Christine. “Knob Creek Officially Open.” The LaRue County Herald News. April. 1986. 

Sites, William H. 2 Feb, 2002. United States Department of Agriculture. letter to Gary Talley: 

 Chief of Operations, Abraham Lincoln Birthplace NHS. 

Slinker, John. “Boyhood Home Cabin, Tavern, Receive Nominations.” The LaRue County 

 Herald News, 3 Sept. 2003. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY References 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • References-ii 

Secondary Sources 

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Brochure. National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. 

 2002. 

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace: Lincoln Boyhood Home at Knob Creek Brochure. National Park 

 Service, U.S Department of the Interior. n.d. 

Abraham Lincoln’s Boyhood Home Brochure. c. 1986. 

Blythe, Robert W., Maureen Carroll, and Steven H. Moffson . Historic Resource Study, Abraham 

 Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site. National Park Service, Southeast Regional 

 Office, Cultural Resources Stewardship, 2001. 

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. 

Cagle, Brian. Public Health Assessment Report, Abraham Lincoln Birthplace NHS. National 

 Park Service, Southeast Regional Office. 12 Dec. 2001. 

Cotterill, R.S. History of Pioneer Kentucky. Cincinnati: Johnson & Hardin, 1917. 

Fehrenbacher, Don E., ed. Abraham Lincoln: A Documentary Portrait Through his Speeches and 

 Writings. California: Stanford University Press, 1994. 

Herndon, William H. Herndon’s Lincoln. Springfield, Illinois: The Herndon’s Lincoln 

 Publishing Company, 1888. 

“Historic Property To Go Under Gravel.” The LaRue County Herald News, 9 Jan. 1986. 

Hudson, Karen E. Architectural Evaluation: Lincoln Boyhood Home, Knob Creek Farm, LaRue 

 County, Kentucky. National Park Service, Southeast Regional Office, 1997. 

KyGenWeb Special Collections. Kentucky Postcards, Knob Creek. 

<www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/KyPostCards/KnobCreek/> 

“Lincoln’s ‘Old Kentucky Home’.” County Line, March-April. 2002. 

Lounsbury, Carl R. An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture & Landscape. New 

York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. 

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Lincoln Boyhood Home. Athertonville, 

 KY: United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1988. 

 

National Park Service. Historic Structure Report, Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Memorial 

 Building. Hodgenville, Kentucky, 2001. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY References 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • References-iii 

National Park Service. Historic Resource Study, Abraham Lincoln Birthplace. 

 <www.nps.gov/abli/hrs/hrs2c.htm > January 2003.

Nickel, Robert K. A Ground-Pentrating Radar Survey at the Knob Creek Farm Unit: Abraham 

 Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site, Kentucky. Tallahasee, Florida: Southeast 

 Archeological Center, National Park Service, 2005. 

Montell, William Lynwood and Michael Lynn Morse. Kentucky Folk Architecture. Lexington: 

 The University Press of Kentucky, 1995. 

Pitcaithley, Dwight T. “Abraham Lincoln’s Birthplace Cabin: The Making of an American 

Icon.” In Myth, Memory, and the Making of the American Landcape, edited by Paul A. 

Shackel, 240-254. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. 

Sculle, Keith A. “The Howard Family Legacy at the Knob Creek Farm.” Journal of the Abraham 

 Lincoln Association, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2005): 23-48. 

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

Tarbell, Ida M. The Life of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Lincoln History Society, 1900. 

Warren, Louis Austin. Lincoln’s Parentage and Childhood. New York: The Century Company, 

 1926. 

Zall, Paul M. Lincoln on Lincoln. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1999. 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Appendix A 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page A-1 

APPENDIX A 

As-Found Floor Plan 

LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Appendix B 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page B-1 

APPENDIX B 

Interview Transcripts 

1. February 28, 2006 – Mary Brooks Howard 

2. March 2, 2006 – Milburn Howard 

3. March 10, 2006 – Milburn Howard 
TELEPHONE INTERVIEW 

Date: February 28, 2006 

Subject: Lincoln Boyhood Home 

 Cabin & Tavern 

Interviewee: Mrs. Fred (Mary “Brooks”) Howard 

 Previous Owner 

Interview by: Joseph K. Oppermann, FAIA 

 Historical Architect 

JO: Mrs. Howard, in calling for you I am afraid that I asked for Mary Howard but I 

now understand that you go by Brooks, not Mary. 

BH: Yes, everyone calls me Brooks. 

JO: And you were married to Fred Howard and lived above the Tavern, I understand. 

BH: Yes, we married in June, 1950 and lived in the apartment upstairs until October, 

1953 when our son was born. We never moved back to the apartment. Our house 

that we were building was ready by then and we moved to it. But Fred lived in 

the apartment for a while before we got married. 

JO: Could you describe the Tavern when you first lived there and the changes you and 

Fred made as well as changes by others? 

BH: I used to go there a lot before we got married. Everyone did. It’s really very 

much the same. 

 The screened-in porch is different now. It was enclosed as a storage room after I 

sold it in 1986. But as long as I can remember it was a screened-in porch. It was 

like that when the Tavern was first built, I believe. 

 Fred put in the shower upstairs in the apartment bathroom in about 1950, just 

before we got married and moved in. 

 He built that pine board wall in the hall about then too. It created an office off in 

that side area near the fireplace. It’s still there. 

 1 of 2 
 He must have put the cabinets with sink in the back of the kitchen along the west 

wall by the back door about the same time. Also the peninsula on the north wall. 

I can’t remember cooking in there without them. The wall cabinet on the east 

wall was always there. The flooring I can’t remember. 

 The two ceiling heaters were installed in the hall in early 1954. I remember 

because the big furnace in the basement burned out in 1953 about the time our son 

was born. We never replaced the furnace. Just left it there and those vents that 

were in the floors. Put the heaters in the hall instead of installing a new furnace. 

 Fred took the mirror off the bar in the early 1950s. The family story is that the 

bar came out of a Louisville hotel. 

 In the mid-1950s we put down a new floor on top of the existing floor in the hall. 

Those globe lights were always there in the hall. After 1986 the fluorescent lights 

were added. 

Outside, those lights that are on the front to the sides were there as long as I can 

remember. 

Fred died in 1980. I added the wheelchair ramp about 1982. It doesn’t meet 

codes today but it was an improvement when put in. I don’t remember about the 

concrete porch. Seems like it has always been there. 

Family members did install the composition shingle roof. I am not sure when. 

Don’t remember wood shingles being on there before. 

One story I remember hearing about the construction of the Tavern is that the 

mason was convicted of murder before he could complete the work. The family 

had to find someone else to finish. 

JO: What about the Cabin? 

MH: I remember that we put on a wood shingle roof in the mid-1950s. 

JO: There was a mason jar with a message inside found in 2003 by the contractor 

working for the National Park Service. The message says that the cabin was 

rebuilt. 

MH: That’s fictitious. They were doing repairs and did that as a prank. They certainly 

didn’t rebuild the cabin. 

 2 of 2 
TELEPHONE INTERVIEW 

Date: March 2, 2006 

Subject: Lincoln Boyhood Home 

 Cabin & Tavern 

Interviewee: Milburn Howard 

 Previous Owner 

Interview by: Joseph K. Oppermann, FAIA 

 Historical Architect 

JO: Mr. Howard, I understand that you were part of the group that bought the 

property at auction from your aunt, Brooks Howard, in 1986. 

MH: Yes, there was a group of us that got together to try to buy it. 

JO: Could you describe what changes the group made to the Tavern and when? 

MH: We did most of the work in the first few years and then the enthusiasm just sort of 

dropped off. 

 About 1988 we enclosed the screened-in porch. Just reused the concrete floor and 

enclosed the walls. Our plan was to have a counter with a sink and cabinets. 

Something for people to use without having to come inside if they rented the 

pavilion and grounds for a party. We built the pavilion then too. And the outside 

public restrooms. It never quite worked that way, though. People still wanted to 

come inside to use the kitchen. 

 About the same time we took out the tile floors in the two in public restrooms 

inside the Tavern. A bunch of the tiles were cracked or had missing pieces. We 

put sheet vinyl down as a replacement. The tiles matched the flooring tiles in the 

kitchen but those were in better condition and we left them in place. 

 We installed the fluorescent lights in the hall and kitchen. The globe lights had 

always been in the hall, as far as I know. My Uncle Fred installed the tear-drop 

lights in the hall to spotlight his exhibits of artifacts. 

 In 1998 we had a roofer replace the composition roof with a new composition 

roof. 

 1 of 2 
 Two years ago the National Park Service called and told us we had to remove the 

rest of our things. That they couldn’t be responsible for them. The artifacts that 

my Uncle Fred collected were just two weeks ago turned over to an antique dealer 

for selling. Some of the things that were originally on display in the Cabin may 

be donated to a museum. The bar is in my barn. 

JO: How about at the Cabin? 

MH: Every year we would go down to the creek to get mud for chinking the logs. It 

was an annual event. 

 At least twice we replaced logs in the chimney stack. Once we replaced the 

bottom log at the door to the Cabin. We would find other cabins in the area where 

we could salvage the logs we needed. 

 Never did anything to the wood shingle roof except put bleach on it to kill the 

moss. Uncle Fred put that shingle roof just before he died in 1980. 

 2 of 2 
TELEPHONE INTERVIEW 

Date: March 10, 2006 

 (Continuation of the Conversation of March 2.) 

Subject: Lincoln Boyhood Home 

 Cabin & Tavern 

Interviewee: Milburn Howard 

 Previous Owner 

Interview by: Joseph K. Oppermann, FAIA 

 Historical Architect 

JO: Mr. Howard, could you continue with your recollections of the Tavern and the 

Cabin? Any information you may have about the construction, use or changes 

over time would be helpful. 

MH: My family told me that the bar my grandfather installed in the Tavern had come 

out of the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville. After the sale of alcohol became illegal, 

he removed the mirror atop the bar and sold it to “Scorchy’ Greenwell who 

wanted it for his tavern in New Haven, KY. His place later burned and the mirror 

was lost in that fire. 

 The wood type of the flooring installed in the hall on top of the original is beech. 

It was not varnished or shellacked but oiled. Every year my cousins and I had to 

mop on “red oil.” 

There never was any heat in the upstairs apartment until my cousin “Fabe” 

Howard (nickname for Fabian) lived there after we bought the place. He lived in 

the north room for about 15 years and used the other two rooms for storage. He 

used a kerosene heater. In about 1990 our cousin Julian Howard, who worked for 

the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, salvaged a new natural gas furnace from one 

of the company’s buildings that was about to be torn down. Fabe hung it in the 

basement from the first-floor floor joists and hooked it up to the propane gas. He 

never switched out the natural gas valve for one designed for propane gas and the 

furnace clogged. Never worked after that. He just left it. That is the furnace in 

the basement now. Got pretty cold in the Tavern. Sometimes you would go in 

and Fabe’s dishes would be in the kitchen sink and the water would be frozen 

solid. But he never seemed to mind too much. 

 1 of 3 
Julian also got for us sinks out of a 1905 railroad building that was being 

demolished. We put them in the outdoor restrooms that we built but the Park 

Service removed them. 

In the basement is a propane gas water heater next to the brick flue. And next to 

it is the pump for the well water. Both work fine. 

There is a sump pump there, too, in the southwest corner of the room near the 

bottom of the stairs. For as long as I can remember there was a bull frog that 

lived in the sump. He would be sitting on the edge when you came down the 

stairs and would jump into the water and disappear. Next time you went down the 

stairs, he would be sitting there again. 

I’m pretty sure that there never was natural gas on the site. My father went to 

Columbia Military School in Tennessee and everything had to be just so-so. He 

always said that he was afraid of natural gas. I am pretty certain that the first 

furnace was coal burning. Next came propane with Uncle Fred and the heaters on 

the hall ceiling. 

Something else about the site. My cousins and I built the log pavilion on a piece 

of flat ground. The Park Service tore it down. But some older family members 

said that the reason it was flat was because it used to be a clay tennis court back 

when the Tavern was first starting out. 

 

JO: What about the Cabin? What about that Mason jar with a message in it saying 

the cabin was rebuilt? 

MH: It was in the summer of 1986. We had just acquired the property in January and 

we were anxious to get going. The cabin was in bad shape. We replaced part of 

the wood floor. Treated for termites. Replaced the bottom logs of the chimney. 

Got square logs from another cabin. When we had the floor up we thought we 

would leave a message. Someone got a mason jar out of the gift shop. We made 

up this story and put it under the flooring. Didn’t know it would be found so 

soon. 

 The next time we worked on the Cabin was about 1990. Using a log from another 

cabin we replaced the bottom log on the east side, where the door is. It needs 

replacing again. Replaced some of the smaller logs in the chimney, too. 

JO: What kind of wood is in the Cabin, do you think? 

MH: The logs are oak, I think. In the chimney it’s a combination of oak and cedar. 

The cedar holds up pretty well. The cedar is mostly in the smaller branches 

higher in chimney stack. 

 2 of 3 
 I don’t know if you have seen the picture of the Cabin in National Geographic 

Magazine. About 1963, I think it was. But if you look at the chimney, it doesn’t 

look like it does now. The logs of the chimney were much smaller than the ones 

in there now. 

JO: What about in the Tavern? Do you know what kind of wood is used there? 

MH: Mostly white oak, I believe. Except for some of those real long logs. They’re 

poplar. 

 

 3 of 3 
LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Appendix C 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page C-1 

APPENDIX C 

Structural Report 






LINCOLN CABIN HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT 

ABLI Boyhood Home Unit, Hodgenville, KY Appendix D 

2006 • JOSEPH K. OPPERMANN – ARCHITECT, P.A. • Page D-1 

APPENDIX D 

Architectural Evaluation 

Lincoln Boyhood Home 

Knob Creek Farm 

LaRue County, Kentucky 

By Karen E. Hudson, Ph.D. 













































As the nation’s principal conservation agency, 

the Department of the Interior has responsibility 

for most of our nationally owned public lands 

and natural resources. This includes fostering 

sound use of our land and water resources; 

protecting our fish, wildlife, and biological 

diversity; preserving the environmental and 

cultural values of our national parks and 

historical places; and providing for the enjoyment 

of life through outdoor recreation. The 

department assesses our energy and mineral 

resources and works to ensure that their 

development is in the best interests of all our 

people by encouraging stewardship and citizen 

participation in their care. The department also 

has a major responsibility for American Indian 

reservation communities and for people who live 

in island territories under U.S. administration. 

NPS D- 35 November 2005