The early 19th-century cabin, symbolic of the one in which Lincoln was born, is preserved in a memorial building at the site of his birth. Thomas and Nancy Lincoln settled on the 348-acre Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville in Fall, 1808. Two months later, on February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born. Here the Lincolns lived and farmed before moving to Knob Creek, a few miles away. On July 17, 1916, Congress established this memorial as a national park site.

Location: 2995 Lincoln Farm Road
Hours & Admission: Open 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Admission is free.
Phone: 270-358-3137
Web site: http://www.nps.gov/abli//

The Abraham Lincoln Boyhood Home at Knob Creek is located about ten miles from the Lincoln Birthplace.  Two years after the Lincoln's lost the Sinking Spring Farm were Lincoln was born, they moved to Knob Creek, which was the place of Lincoln first memories.  

Location: 7120 Bardstown Road, Hodgenville, Kentucky 42748
Hours & Admission: Open 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Admission is free. 
Phone: 270-358-3137
Web site: http://www.nps.gov/abli//

The museum's main exhibit includes twelve dioramas showing pivotal times in Abraham Lincoln's life - from his boyhood in Kentucky to his assassination. Other exhibits include rare newspaper clippings, campaign posters, and Lincoln memorabilia. An art gallery on the second floor features paintings, drawings, and other artworks portraying Lincoln.

Location: Downtown Historic District of Hodgenville
Hours & Admission: Monday-Saturday 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., Sunday 12:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. Adults $3, Seniors $2.50, Children 5-12 $1.50
Phone: 270-358-3163
Web site: http://www.lincolnmuseum-ky.org/

Senator Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln's political mentor and hero, built his home on this site. After his death in 1852, Clay's heirs sold the land to his son, James Brown Clay. He built the current house, now on the National Historic Register, in 1857. During the Civil War, James Clay and his family moved to Canada because of his Confederate sympathies. James subsequently died in Canada in 1864 and in January, 1866, his widow, Susan Jacobs Clay, sold the estate to Kentucky University, now the University of Kentucky.

Location: 120 Sycamore Road
Hours & Admission: Open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. ,March through December. Open Sunday, 1 p.m. - 4 p.m., April through October. Please check Web site for more information. Adults $10, Children $5, Children 5 and under free.
Phone: 859-266-8581
Web site: http://www.henryclay.org/

The Todd family moved to this two-story Georgian-style house in 1832 when Mary was 13 years old. After their marriage, Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln stayed here when they visited Lexington. In the fall of 1847 the family stayed for three weeks on their way to Washington for Lincoln's only term in Congress. The Mary Todd Lincoln house has the distinction of being the first historic site restored in honor of a First Lady.

Location: 578 West Main Street
Hours & Admission: Open to the public Monday-Saturday 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. from March 15 to November 30. Last tour starts at 3:15 p.m. Adults $7, $1 off with AAA discount, Children 6-12 $4, Children under 6 free.
Phone: 859-233-9999
Web site: http://www.mtlhouse.org/

Camp Nelson, located south of Nicholasville in Jessamine County, was the largest African American recruitment camp in Kentucky and the third largest in the nation. Many of the black recruits, who were emancipated upon enlistment, brought their families with them to Camp Nelson in the hope that they would also be freed or at least escape slavery. About 5,400 slaves enrolled at Camp Nelson. Designated a U.S. cemetery for Union dead in 1867, Camp Nelson remains a military cemetery.

Location: 6614 Danville Pike
Hours & Admission: Tuesday - Saturday 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Phone: 859-881-5716
Web site: http://www.campnelson.org/

Farmington, a fourteen-room Federal-style home, was the center of John and Lucy Speed's nineteenth-century hemp plantation. Abraham Lincoln, a close friend of John Speed's son, Joshua, spent about three weeks at Farmington in 1841. Designed from plans drawn by Thomas Jefferson and completed in 1816 with slave labor, the newly restored house features original paint colors, historic wallpaper and carpets, and is furnished with Kentucky and period furnishings.

Location: 3033 Bardstown Road
Hours & Admission: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Sunday, 1:30 - 4:30 p.m. Adults $6, Seniors $5, Children 6-18 $3, 5 and under free.
Phone: 502-452-9920
Web site: www.historichomes.org/farmington

The Kentucky Historical Society's Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History has a number of Lincoln-related collections, including the pocket watch Lincoln was wearing when he was assassinated.  The Old State Capitol and the Kentucky Military History Museum are also part of the Society's campus, offering numerous connections to Kentucky's Civil War history.

Location: 100 West Broadway Street, Frankfort.

Hours & Admission: Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Adults $4, Youth (6-18) $2, children 5 and under free.

Phone: 502-564-1792
Web site: http://www.history.ky.gov/

Lincoln Homestead State Park features the original home of Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks, as well as replicas of the 1782 cabin and blacksmith shop where his father was raised and learned his trade. The park also includes the home of Mordecai Lincoln, the president's favorite uncle, and showcases reproductions of traditional pioneer split-rail fence and pioneer furniture.

Location: 5079 Lincoln Park Road
Hours & Admission: Open May 1 to September 30. A fee is charged for admission.
Phone: 859-336-7461
Web site: http://parks.ky.gov/findparks/recparks/lh/

The Washington County Courthouse houses the Lincoln Legacy Museum, which highlights the major parts of Abraham Lincoln’s story with special emphasis on his family background.  The Courthouse also contains the marriage bond of Lincoln’s parents, Thomas and Nancy, who were married near Springfield in 1806.  A statue of Lincoln was erected in 2009 across the street from the courthouse, interpreting Lincoln’s confusion about where- and perhaps whether- his parents were actually married.

 100 E. Main St.

Springfield, Ky. 40069

859-36-5440

http://www.seespringfieldky.com/item/lincoln-legacy-museum/

Located just over the Kentucky boarder in Harrogate, Tennessee, the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum serves an important constituency in Southeast Kentucky.  The museum houses one of the most diverse Lincoln and Civil War collections in the country.  Exhibited are many rare items: the cane Lincoln carried that fateful night at Ford's Theatre, two life masks, the tea set he and Mary Todd used in their home in Springfield, and numerous other artifacts.  Approximately 30,000 books, manuscripts, pamphlets, photographs, paintings and sculptures tell the story of President Lincoln and the Civil War period in America's history.

6965 Cumberland Gap Parkway

Harrogate, TN

423-869-6235

www.lmunet.edu/museum/index.html 

The Lincoln statue at Centre College commemorates the many ties Lincoln had to this campus.  Lincoln’s first law partner, two of his wife’s brothers, and his judge advocate general during the Civil War all attended school here.  In addition, John C. Breckinridge, who ran against Lincoln for president in 1860, also graduated from Centre.  Today, the Lincoln statue on the Centre campus reflects the president’s ideals and commemorates his connections to the college.

Open year round

Admission free

The Lincoln Heritage Scenic Byway, a 72-mile stretch of US 31E and US 150, travels through six communities as it winds its way through the knobs of Kentucky.  The corridor passes through Hodgenville, New Haven, Bardstown, Springfield, Perryville and Danville. This corridor exhibits significant historic and cultural resources around every turn. It embraces a set of four strong aspects: Abraham Lincoln, US History and the Civil War, Bourbon Heritage, and Religious Heritage.

For more information about the byway and to access a byway map, visit 

http://www.lincolnheritagebyway.com/wp/. 

Currently undergoing extensive renovation, this location features the birthplace and grave of Joseph Holt.  Holt was Commissioner of Patents, Postmaster General and Secretary of War in President Buchanan's Administration, 1857-1861. Lincoln named him Judge Advocate General of the Union army in 1862. Holt prosecuted conspirators in the assassination of Lincoln, 1865.

6205 Hwy. 144 E.

270-756-0268

www.jholt-houseky.org/

Completed in 1924, this 351-foot obelisk marks the birthplace of Lincoln's adversary, Jefferson Davi, President of the Confederate States of America. The site is now home to the Jefferson Davis State Historic Site, where visitors can tour a museum about Davis and ride an elevator to the top of the monument.  

258 Pembroke-Fairview Rd.

U.S. Highway 68-80

Fairview, KY 42221

Phone: (270) 889-6100

Open Friday through Monday, 9:00am to 5:00pm through October 31

Closed Tuesday through Thursday

Donated in 1911 by James Breckinridge Speed, the nephew of Lincoln’s best friend, Joshua Speed, the Lincoln statue in the capitol rotunda is one of the most impressive artistic renditions of the sixteenth president.  Created by renowned artist Adolf A. Weinman, the sculpture stands fourteen feet tall and is surrounded by other significant Kentucky politicians, such as Alben Barkley, Henry Clay, and Jefferson Davis.

700 Capital Ave.

Frankfort, KY, 40601 

502-564-3449

The Lincoln family has a long history in Hardin County. Bathsheba Lincoln, Captain Abraham Lincoln’s widow, spent the last thirty years of her life living with her youngest child, Nancy, in the Mill Creek area. She and Nancy Lincoln Brumfield are buried in Lincoln Memorial Cemetery, located on the Fort Knox Military Reservation.

Thomas Lincoln lived in or near Elizabethtown from about 1796 to 1808. A solid citizen, he served as a policeman, helped lay out and build roads, and served in the militia. His services as a carpenter and cabinetmakerwere always in demand. Lincoln helped construct both industrial buildings, such as Haycraft’s Mill, and homes such as the Hardin Thomas House, now known as the Lincoln Heritage House. After he married Nancy Hanks in 1806 the couple may have lived on the Mill Creek farm for as long as a year before moving to Elizabethtown, where Thomas built a house. Their first child, Sarah, was born in Elizabethtown in 1808. Both the Sinking Spring and Knob Creek farms were in Hardin County when the Lincolns lived there, LaRue County had yet to be formed. The Lincoln family left Kentucky in 1816. Thomas Lincoln returned to Elizabethtown one more time, after the death of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, to court and marry Sarah Bush Johnston in December 1819.

These stories and more are interpreted at the Hardin County History Museum and Lincoln related sites at Freeman Lake Park.  

Hardin County History Museum

201 W. Dixie Ave.

Elizabethtown, KY 42701

270-763-8339

www.hardinkyhistory.org

On October 8, 1862, cannon explosions shattered the rural peace of this tranquil countryside, along with the death moans of young soldiers. Perryville became the site of the most destructive Civil War battle in the state, which left more than 7,600 killed, wounded, or missing. The park museum tells of the battle that was the South’s last serious attempt to gain possession of Kentucky. The battlefield is one of the most unaltered Civil War sites in the nation; vistas visible today are virtually those that soldiers saw on that fateful day in 1862. A self-guided walking tour on the battlefield interprets battle events.

Website: http://parks.ky.gov/findparks/histparks/pb/

The Civil War Museum of the Western Theater features extensive exhibits and artifacts related to what were then known as the "western" states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and others.  Key artifacts include the flag of the 2nd Kentucky Cavalry, the presentation sword of Confederate Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman, and a silver flask presented to Confederate General John C. Breckinridge just after he joined the Confederate Army.  Visitors can also enjoy the nearby reproduction colonial village and Women's Civil War Museum.

Open daily, 10 a.m.- 5 p.m., March-October

Open Fri.- Sun. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. November

Closed Dec. 1- Feb 28, Easter and Thanksgiving

Form more information, visit www.civil-war-museum.org.  

White Hall was the home of Cassius Marcellus Clay: emancipationist, newspaper publisher, and friend to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln appointed Clay as minister to Russia. Clay's restored 44-room Italianate mansion was built in 1799 and remodeled in the 1860s. In addition to the heirloom and period furnishings, White Hall has many features which were unique for its day, including indoor running water and central heating.

Location: 500 White Hall Shrine Road
Hours & Admission: Tours given April 1-Labor Day Sunday - Saturday 9 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., after Labor Day - October 31 Wednesday - Sunday 9 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., November 1 - March 31 10 a.m. - noon & 2 p.m. Adults $6, Seniors $4, Children 6-12 $3, under 6 free.
Phone: 859-623-9178
Web site: http://parks.ky.gov/findparks/histparks/wh/

The Lincoln Memorial at Waterfront Park is a large interpretive landscape facing the Ohio River featuring a 12' statue of Lincoln, four bas reliefs, and a stone amphitheater.  The memorial uses sculptural elements, artistic expression, and Abraham Lincoln’s own words to convey Lincoln’s lifelong ties to Kentucky and the state’s influence on his life.  The memorial offers glimpses of different stages of Lincoln’s life, including his childhood in Kentucky, his political and social rise, the impact of the Civil War on Lincoln, his family, and the nation, and the roots of his abhorrence of slavery.

The Lincoln Memorial at Waterfront Park is free to the public and is open year-round during park hours, 6:00 a.m. through 11:00 p.m. daily.  

129 E. River Rd.

Louisville, Ky., 40280

(502) 574-3768

 http://www.louisvillewaterfront.com/projects/lincoln/ 

Filson Historical Society- Louisville

Bluegrass Railroad Museum- Versailles