Mammoth Cave National Park
The rolling countryside looks like a green golf ball with numerous dimpled depressions marking sinkholes in porous limestone karst topography. The large aerial photograph of Kentucky’s south-central landscape, which covers an entire wall at the visitors center of Mammoth Cave National Park, gives a dramatic visual impression of the state’s extensive cave region.
Mammoth Cave, the region’s centerpiece, is a World Heritage Site that is twice as long as any other cave system in the world. Its 365 miles of surveyed passageways are filled with fascinating formations of stalactites, stalagmites and dripstones at interestingly named sites such as Giant’s Coffin, Sidesaddle Pit, Bottomless Pit, Mary’s Vineyard, Fat Man’s Misery and Ruins of Karnak.
Vickie Carson, public information officer for the park, said the 75-minute, half-mile Frozen Niagara tour is the shortest and most efficient for tour groups. “Everyone can go on that,” she said.
Mammoth Cave is considered the second-oldest tourist attraction in the United States behind Niagara Falls.
“Tours started in 1816,” said Carson. “We are the granddaddy of tourism in the state of Kentucky.”
The new visitors center has informative exhibits about the geology of the cave system and its history and culture, which includes stories of black slaves who were legendary guides in the mid-19th century.
Aboveground, the park covers and protects wetlands and old-growth forests and features 60 miles of hiking trails, varied wildlife and recreational opportunities on the Green River.
“We are finding out more and more about the cultural and natural significances of the park,” said Carson. “We have more plant species than the Great Smoky Mountains.”
Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill
Harrodsburg
The Shakers, a religious order so called for its members’ vigorous worshiping dancing, were skillful farmers and crafters that were respected for the quality of their furniture, buildings, livestock and innovative work-saving gadgets.
In the early 19th century, the order started its first settlement in the West on farmland near Harrodsburg. By midcentury, the community was a highly successful operation.
The Civil War drained the community’s resources, and it steadily declined until it dissolved in 1910. The many stone, brick and wooden buildings were used for various purposes until a preservation effort in the early 1960s led to their rehabilitation and the opening of Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill.
Today, the site has 34 restored Shaker buildings, a restaurant, overnight lodging and three retail shops. Its 3,000 acres include more than 40 miles of hiking trails in a nature preserve, a historic farm and an organic garden.
“We are a Historic Landmark destination,” said Jill Malusky, director of visitor engagement. “We are one of the largest of its kind in the country.”
The restaurant in the 200-year-old Trustees Office, with its distinctive dual spiraling staircases, features traditional Southern food.
The Inn at the Village has rooms in 13 restored historic buildings appointed with reproduction Shaker furniture.
The village’s Dixie Belle paddle wheeler provides cruises on the Kentucky River. “You learn how the river was used by the Shakers and see the spectacular cliffs of the palisades,” said Malusky.
“We have a variety of guided programs for groups. The Discovery Tour is a good overview and history of the Shaker culture.”
Although there are still demonstrations of traditional Shaker crafts such as broom-making and weaving, the village is moving away from the former model of costumed interpreters telling about the Shakers.
“There are fewer lectures and more dialogue,” said Malusky. “We want you to ask questions.”
Abraham Lincoln
Although Abraham Lincoln lived in Kentucky only the first seven years of his life, he casts a large shadow over his native state. The Kentucky Lincoln Heritage Trail connects nearly two dozen sites associated with the legendary 16th president.
Lincoln’s story begins at the Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, where he was born in 1809. A granite and marble Neoclassical memorial at the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site houses a small log cabin that is representative of the one in which Lincoln was born.
“Even though it is not the original, it is symbolic of where he got his humble beginnings,” said a park ranger.
Fifty-six steps, representing Lincoln’s age when he was assassinated, lead up a hill to the memorial. The nearby visitors center contains the Lincoln family Bible from 1799 that includes Lincoln’s name.
The Lincoln Museum in downtown Hodgenville has 12 dioramas that show pivotal times in Lincoln’s life, and the town center has two statues of Lincoln, one as a youth and one as an adult.
Lincoln Homestead State Park, near Springfield, has the original house where Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks, lived when Lincoln’s father, Thomas Lincoln, proposed to her.
In downtown Springfield, the Lincoln Legacy Museum in the 1816 former county courthouse, where Thomas and Nancy’s marriage bond is kept, has a small museum about Lincoln’s life.
In downtown Lexington, the Mary Todd Lincoln House, where his wife lived as a teenager, was the first museum in the country to honor a first lady.
“It was the house she brought Lincoln back to after they were married,” said director Gwen Thompson. “They came back to Lexington at least three times.”
