Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the USA was born on February 16th 1809 in a log cabin on the Kentucky frontier. Lincoln grew up on a farm in Indiana. He educated himself and became a lawyer. and in 1861 he was elected president.
As the centennial of Lincoln’s birth approached, interest in memorializing the 16th president increased. Robert Collier, publisher of Colliers Weekly, bought the Sinking Springs Farm in 1905. The following year, he and his associates formed the Abraham Lincoln Farm Association to create a suitable memorial. They purchased the cabin and began work on the Memorial Building. Over 120,000 individuals from across the country, including thousands of schoolchildren, contributed a total of about $350,000 for the memorial. In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt dedicated the cornerstone. President William Howard Taft dedicated the memorial for the nation two years later. In his remarks, he said that it would be a reminder of “the unexplained and unexplainable growth and development, from the humblest and homeliest soil, of Lincolns’ genius, intellect, heart, and character.” The small, simple cabin represents the simplicity of Lincoln’s early years. While the gleaming granite and marble Memorial Building that houses the cabin, which the young John Russell Pope designed in the Neoclassical style, is an appropriate symbol of the honored position Lincoln holds in American memory. The Knob Creek Farm property became part of the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site in 2001.
The Birthplace unit consists of the Memorial Building and 116 acres of Thomas Lincoln’s Sinking Spring Farm. Walking trails trace the paths of Lincoln’s earliest days, past the famous Sinking Spring, and the site of the boundary marker oak tree. The trails at the Knob Creek Farm unit trace the creek where young Abraham and friends used to work and play.
Credit : National Park Service
Picture Credit : Google
