Humble Beginnings

I was born, and have ever remained, in the most humble walks of life.

~Abraham Lincoln

It all started in Arco, Idaho in 2002.  I was in the gift shop at Craters of the Moon National Monument amassing a pile of postcards when I spotted it out of the corner of my eye.  Oh sure, I knew there were national parks in the United States, but until I began to thumb through the pages of the spiral-bound Passport to Your National Parks, I really had no idea of how extensive our National Park Service was.

Yellowstone National Park was established as our nation’s first by an Act signed by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872; the NPS was created some 44 years later when President Woodrow Wilson signed another in August 1916.  Today the NPS is compromised of 395 units which cover more than 84 million acres in every state (except Delaware!), the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.  They not only preserve the scenic areas of our country, but also share the stories of its people in national parks, monuments, battlefields, military parks, historical parks and sites, lakeshores, seashores, recreation areas, scenic rivers and trails, and the White House.  Whew!  Suddenly there were a lot more places I wanted to see. 

With color-coded maps, pictures and descriptions of a variety of regions, the NPS Passport points me in the direction of its assorted sites.  And, like an international passport, it provides a place to collect cancellation stamps bearing the names and dates of the places to which I’ve been.  In addition to accomplishing things on my Bucket List while traveling, one of my idiosyncrasies became a desire (obsession?) to obtain a stamp in my NPS Passport from whatever happened to be in the area I was visiting.  Five such sites can be found in Kentucky, two of which were in the vicinity of where we’d be.  Let’s roll!

The Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park was the first memorial built to honor our 16th President.  That’s right, Lincoln hailed from Kentucky.  Even though he ultimately wound up in Illinois, the Bluegrass State was home to his humble beginnings.  Compromised of two units, this park focuses on Lincoln’s life in the south.  The Birthplace Unit features a symbolic cabin enshrined within a memorial building and the Boyhood Home Unit where Lincoln spent his formative years.  Since we were traveling from the north, we actually stopped at the latter first, but for the sake of chronology I’ll detail the sites in reverse.

At the Visitor Center at the Birthplace Unit we viewed a 15-minute film, Abraham Lincoln: The Kentucky Years, to discover where it all started. 

In the fall of 1808, Thomas and Nancy (Hanks) Lincoln and their year-old daughter Sarah settled at Sinking Spring farm in what is today known as Hodgenville, Kentucky. 

Two months later, on February 12, 1809, Nancy gave birth to their second child in a one-room log cabin.  He was named Abraham after his grandfather. 

Due to an unstable land title, in 1811 the family moved 10 miles northeast and rented 30 acres of the Knob Creek farm.  Lincoln’s earliest memory was of this homestead and helping his father plant pumpkin seeds. 

The reconstructed cabin at this site actually belonged to the Gollaher family. 

Had it not been for his childhood friend Austin Gollaher, who plucked Lincoln from a swollen stream following a flash flood, the great man’s story would have ended here.  But he and his family remained at Knob Creek for five more years until slavery issues and lawsuits over title to Sinking Spring farm led them to Indiana. 

In 1905 Robert Collier purchased the farm where Lincoln was born. Together with Mark Twain, William Jennings Bryan, Samuel Gompers and others, he formed the Lincoln Farm Association to preserve the birthplace and establish a memorial to house a log cabin from the farm; they raised over $350,000 from 100,000 citizens.  John Russell Pope, known for other famous structures such as the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., designed the Beaux-Arts neo-classical building at Lincoln’s birthplace.  The cornerstone was laid by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1909 and dedicated by President William Howard Taft in 1911, almost 100 years after the Lincoln family moved from Sinking Spring farm. 

Fifty-six granite steps—one for each year of Lincoln’s life—lead to the log cabin inside the building.  While it is old and typical to the area of that time, it is not the original Lincoln cabin.  The memorial building also features 16 windows, 16 rosettes on the ceiling, and 16 fence poles, all representative of Lincoln as our 16th President. 

Having previously toured the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in Indiana and the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Illinois, I knew how Lincoln’s story ended.  With our visit to the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park, I finally learned how his story began.  After I scored a stamp from each site in my NPS Passport, it was time for discoveries of another kind …

The Kentucky State Capitol

Being afforded many opportunities to travel, I’ve actually seen more than the 20 states crossed off aforementioned list.  But because I haven’t yet toured their statehouse, places like California, Nevada, South Dakota, Florida, New York and New Jersey haven’t scored a checkmark.  My list, my rules!  Since that notion is what prompted a trip to the Bluegrass State, its Capitol was the site to which we first headed upon arriving there.

Completed in 1910, Kentucky’s current Capitol is the fourth permanent statehouse constructed since the Commonwealth’s statehood in 1792.  It was built to replace the earlier 1830 capitol building, still standing in downtown Frankfort, which had become inadequate to accommodate the growing state government.  Designed by Frank Mills Andrews, it is considered to be one of the most beautiful capitols in the country.  His Beaux Arts design is a pleasant departure from the many classical Greek and Roman structures I’ve seen in other capital cities.

The exterior of the Capitol is faced in Indiana limestone and Vermont granite.  The pediment above the entrance was designed by Charles Henry Niehaus and carved by Australian sculptor Peter Rossack.  The central figure represents Kentucky, with Progress, History, Plenty, Law, Art and Labor as her attendants.  The animals symbolize agriculture.

The building’s interior is open to visitors and guided tours are available on the hour. We instead grabbed a map and opted to explore on our own.

The capitol rotunda features sculptures of prominent Kentuckians, including Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Henry Clay, Ephraim McDowell and Alben Berkley. 

The dome rises more than seven stories in height (180 feet) and was patterned after the dome of Napoleon’s tomb in Paris. 

My favorite feature of any capitol building is the murals which depict its history.  The four hand-painted murals in the Capitol’s pendentives (the triangular areas beneath the dome) did not disappoint.  Though it took nearly 100 years for their design to be realized, the story of how they came to be is an interesting one.

 Civitas: The Light of Progress

When the Capitol was originally built, plans were made for muralist Frank Millet—a former Harvard classmate of Kentucky’s then governor August E. William—to design and paint murals in the Capitol rotunda.  Tragically, he died on the ill-fated maiden voyage of the Titanic on April 14, 1912 and the idea was put on hold.

Nature: The Bounty of the Land

When EverGreene Architectural Arts conducted a restoration of the State Reception Room in 1991, Capitol officials were presented with a sketch of how the rotunda could look with painted pendentive murals.  That, however, was tucked away in the attic and forgotten until serendipitously discovered again in 2005. 

Culture: The Fruits of Knowledge

Planning and funding ensued over the next several years.  It proved challenging until Marion Forcht, a member of the Historic Properties Advisory Commission, stepped forward to underwrite the entire project.  Her donation is the largest in the history of the Capitol.  Through her generosity, pendentive murals were finally designed for the rotunda.  They were completed in June 2010, aptly timed with the Capitol’s centennial. 

Industry: The Strength of Commerce

The four themes represented in the murals are agriculture, industry, civilization and culture.  Each is representative of various history and landmarks found throughout the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Andrews’ penchant for French design can also be seen in other interior features of the building.  The massive marble stairways in the Great Hall resemble those in the Paris Opera and the State Reception Room is a replica of Marie Antoinette’s drawing room at Versailles.  The grand corridors feature 36 columns of Vermont granite and art glass skylights. 

Lunettes painted by Gilbert T. White are featured above each staircase and highlight the entrances to the legislative chambers.  In the east wing above the House is a representation of Daniel Boone’s first view of the Bluegrass Region in 1769.  

To the west above the Senate Boone and Richard Henderson conclude the Treaty of Watauga in 1775, which allowed for the purchase of much of the land that is Kentucky from the Cherokee Indians.

With amazing architecture steeped in rich history, this Capitol building was well worth the visit.  A final photo outside the front doors proved we had actually seen the Kentucky statehouse and made my 20th tour official!

The Bluegrass State

When I was younger my uncle once told me, “The older you get, the faster time goes.”  Back then I thought he was nuts, but now believe he may very well have been onto something.  No. 10 on my Bucket List reads “Tour the capitol building of all 50 states.”  I had been making great strides through the years since first formulating the plan in 1999.  Would you believe, though, the last one I saw was in 2008?  Yes, I’ve come to realize that time does indeed fly.  Gotta work on that list!  The opportunity presented itself over Labor Day weekend.  Grab a partner in crime, cash in points for a hotel stay and gas, go.  Kentucky here we come!

I drove to Mark’s place the night before and we hit the road early the next morning.  I admittedly was neither bright-eyed nor bushy-tailed, but excited to be embarking upon another exploratory adventure.  Mapquest indicated it was nearly a five-hour journey from Toledo to Kentucky’s capital city of Frankfort, but once on the road Morris A. Wellington (the GPS I received as a recent birthday gift and named after a previous Iowan adventure) told us we’d be there in just four hours.  Love it!

After we crossed the state line from Ohio, we stopped at the Visitor’s Center.  We had been in the southwestern corner of Kentucky when returning home from a visit to Little Rock and Memphis in 2008, but our current trip was thrown together at the eleventh hour.  Aside from a couple of must-sees on our agenda, we really had no idea of what there was in the north and south central regions of the commonwealth. 

Yep, you read that right.  Kentucky is one of four states in the U.S. to use the term “commonwealth.”  (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia are the others.)  A commonwealth is defined as a community of people acting in common interest.  Though the term has no legal meaning, its use is traditional.   

We ended up winging it for most of our trip.  Since the mercury was pushing 103 that weekend, we opted for air-conditioned comfort and did a lot of driving the back roads of the scenic central areas.  The lovely field of wildflowers at the VC was the first clue as to what was in store.

This Kentuckian water tower also hinted at what was to come.  Love that Southern drawl!

The topography began to change from fast-paced interstates to passageways cut through limestone ridges leading to rolling farmland. 

Unfamiliar yellow crops begged an exchange similar to one of my favorite Steve Martin-Bill Murray SNL skits:

“What the hell is THAT?”

“I don’t know WHAT the hell that is.”

“What in the HELL is that?”

“I don’t know.  What the hell IS that?”

“Oh, I know what that is …”

I finally figured out they were tobacco fields!

When Kentucky became the fifteenth state to join the Union in 1792, its economy flourished with the production of tobacco, the state’s main cash crop.  Today it remains one of the biggest tobacco industries, as was evident by the fields and fields we saw during our travels.

Tobacco leaves are first harvested when they start to yellow and are then transferred for curing.  The length and method of the process varies depending upon the desired end result.  Air-cured tobacco is allowed to dry over a period of four to eight weeks.  Low in sugar and high in nicotine, this produces cigars.  

Fire-curing in tobacco barns results in pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco and snuff. 

I found the whole tobacco thing fascinating.  No, I wasn't smoking any of it.  We’re Yanks.  We don’t grow this stuff back home. 

We noticed that most of the barns of Kentucky also sport quilt patterns.

And hurray … while leisurely driving through the country, we found a couple of Kentucky’s timbered tunnels.  Covered bridges were first built across the state’s rivers and creeks in the late 1700s, but didn’t become popular until after 1814.  While there were once hundreds of these architectural beauties, only 13 now remain.  Many of them were destroyed during the Civil War.

Franklin County’s only covered bridge spans the north fork of Elkhorn Creek. 

The Howe truss of the Switzer Covered Bridge extends 120 feet and was built in 1855 by George Hockensmith. 

Each entrance has a sawtooth edge and the lattice is pinned with wooden pegs called trunnels.  This structure was closed to traffic in 1954.

Mt. Zion Covered Bridge, also called Beech Fork Covered Bridge because it crosses the Beech Fork Creek,

is the longest multi-span bridge in Kentucky at 211 feet.

The 1865 bridge is built of yellow pine and features a Burr truss—an arch of wood sandwiched between two posts and named for Theodore Burr who patented the design in 1804.  This bridge is also closed to traffic.

After Kentucky became a state in 1792, five commissioners were appointed to choose a location for its capital.  A number of communities competed for the honor, but Frankfort outbid them all.  Persuading factors, according to early history, included the offer of Andrew Holmes’ log house as the capitol for seven years, a number of town lots, £50 worth of locks and hinges, 10 boxes of glass, 1500 pounds of nails, and $3,000 in gold!  It has remained the capital city ever since.

Downtown Frankfort is nestled in a valley along the banks of the Kentucky River.  The historic buildings of the town are well preserved and house antique shops, coffee houses and restaurants;

the state capitol and executive mansion are across the waterway. 

En route to a capitol tour (a more in-depth account will follow in the next post), I made Mark pull over in one of the uptown neighborhoods.  I know the work of Frank Lloyd Wright when I see it! 

Sure enough, the only structure of the great architect erected in Kentucky is the Rev. Jesse R. Zeigler House.  The design for the residence came about after a chance shipboard meeting of Zeigler with Wright in 1910; construction of the prairie house began later that year.  Today it is privately owned and not available to tour, but I’m glad we happened upon it.

The scenic drive from Frankfort to Lexington, Kentucky’s second largest city which is known as the Horse Capital of the world, is famous for its pastures. 

This region is truly a horse lover’s paradise with its sprawling breeding farms

and thoroughbreds grazing on Kentucky bluegrass.

The grass for which the state is named of course isn’t really blue; it’s green.  In the spring, however, the blue-purple buds lend a bluish tint to the landscape when viewed from a distance.

We also visited a couple of Kentucky’s national parks (and scored stamps in my National Parks Passport!), but that too warrants its own post.  More soon …

Though we did cover a lot of ground during our visit to the Bluegrass State, as I write and relive this adventure I realize how much we didn’t see.  But you can’t do it all in just a few days and that sweltering heat had a way of beating us down.  Our energy was zapped, we were a tad bit crabby and ready to go home.  Someday I will return to Kentucky to discover even more of its treasures, but for now I have successfully checked off another item on my Bucket List.

20 states down; 30 to go!