Kentucky's Most Historic Towns

Kentucky's history is rooted in frontier settlement, Civil War border state politics, bourbon heritage, and African American history in the Upper South.

Bardstown
The "Bourbon Capital of the World" and one of the most historically preserved towns in Kentucky. The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Joseph Proto-Cathedral (1816 — the first Catholic cathedral west of the Allegheny Mountains), My Old Kentucky Home State Park (Federal Hill plantation, associated with Stephen Foster's "My Old Kentucky Home"), the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History, and the dense cluster of bourbon distilleries (Heaven Hill, Willett, Barton, Jim Beam's Knob Creek facility) make Bardstown a uniquely layered destination. The Stephen Foster: The Musical outdoor drama runs nightly in summer.

Harrodsburg
Old Fort Harrod — the first permanent English settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains, established by James Harrod in 1774. The reconstructed fort (log stockade, blockhouses, cabins) is a state park; costumed interpreters demonstrate frontier life. The George Rogers Clark memorial commemorates the Revolutionary War expedition that secured Kentucky for Virginia.

Hodgenville
Abraham Lincoln's birthplace — Lincoln was born on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville on February 12, 1809. The Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park preserves the symbolic log cabin birthplace in a Greek Revival memorial building. The Lincoln Museum in Hodgenville has the most complete collection of Lincoln figurines in the world.

Berea
The home of Berea College — the only tuition-free college in the US, founded in 1855 as the South's first coeducational and interracial college. Berea's craft heritage (the college requires all students to work in crafts — weaving, woodworking, ceramics — to earn their tuition credit) has made it the center of Appalachian craft production. The Kentucky Artisan Center on I-75 is excellent.

Washington
Near Maysville in Mason County — Washington is a remarkably preserved late-18th-century Kentucky frontier town. The Simon Kenton Inn (1800), the Albert Sidney Johnston House (birthplace of the Confederate general), and Harriet Beecher Stowe's reference to this area in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (she witnessed a slave auction at Washington in 1833) give it historical depth.