Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Park

Above the entrance to the Lincoln Birthplace Memorial Building are carved these words.

“Here over the log cabin where Abraham Lincoln was born destined to preserve the Union and to free the slave. A grateful people have dedicated this memorial to unity, peace, and brotherhood among these States with malice toward none with charity for all.”

We visited the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Park in rural Central Kentucky in May 2025 while staying at the Thousand Trails Diamond Caverns RV & Golf Resort about 45-minutes away in Park City, Kentucky. The memorial building, completed in 1911 was largely funded by citizen donations, and was built to honor the humble beginnings of the Nation’s 16th president. The memorial building houses a cabin, symbolic of Lincoln’s birth home. It was constructed 11 years before the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. and is referred to by the National Park Service as “The First Lincoln Memorial”.

Alongside the 56 steps that ascend to the memorial building, with each step representing one year of Lincolns life, we visited the Sinking Spring – a land feature that the Lincoln family would have used as their water source, and for which the original farm site was named.

From the Lincoln birthplace site, we drove about 10-miles to Lincoln’s boyhood home where the Lincoln family lived on 30 acres of the 228 acre Knob Creek Farm from the time Abraham was two and a half until he was almost eight years old. This site features hiking trails, a visitor center housed in a 1930 Inn building, as well as a log cabin reconstructed from period materials and representative of Lincoln’s boyhood home.

Photos from our visit to these sites are provided below.