Published: October 03, 2009 12:02 pm      

Lincoln visits Ashland

Highlands Museum exhibit "Beyond the Log Cabin" continues until Feb. 19

ASHLAND — Growing up in Springfield, Ill., Bob Cruickshank got sick of Abraham Lincoln.

“Every time some family came to visit, we were off to his tomb and his home and to New Salem, where he first opened a store,” Cruickshank of South Point said.

But Friday night, he could be found perusing “Beyond the Log Cabin: Kentucky’s Abraham Lincoln,” which opened at the Highlands Museum and Discovery Center in Ashland.

“As you get older you grow to appreciate these things,” he said, adding his best memories of the Lincoln sites in Springfield were the log cabin where he grew up and the store where he worked.

“They have logs that he split,” he said. “The words ‘Now he belongs to the ages’ are at his tomb. That really impressed me.”

Cruickshank also is impressed with the exhibit at the Highlands, which will remain there until Feb. 19.

“This is wonderful,” he said. “It’s amazing what the museum has done with this exhibit. I really appreciate what they have done.”

Leigh Ann Heineman, executive director of the Highlands Museum and Discovery Center, said she saw the exhibit when it was at The Speed Museum in Louisville.

“I got chills,” she said, admitting she is a history buff and very interested in the kinds of artifacts this exhibit includes. “My favorite piece is a campaign lantern from the 1864 election. It says ‘Free men, free soil, free labor.’”

Although she has three or four favorite presidents, Heineman said Lincoln holds a special place in her heart because he’s the only Kentucky-born United States president. “He also was president during arguably the most turbulent time in U.S. history.”

The Highlands was a good choice for a venue for the exhibit, Marilyn Zoildis, assistant director of the Kentucky Historical Society, said.

“We were looking for a place that could accommodate a 4,000-square-foot exhibition and we knew about the Highlands,” Zoildis said. “We thought it would be a good space and get good support from the community.”

She said there has been good support, especially from the staff and volunteers from the Highlands, who have made trips to Frankfort for training.

Venue was important in organizing the exhibit, a process that began in November 2006. The venues had to be secured before the artifacts could be released for use in the exhibit. Zoildis said pieces in the exhibit came from Washington, the Robert Todd Lincoln home in Vermont and Harper’s Ferry National Park in Virginia. She said it is the only time most of these pieces will be on display in the same exhibit.

The exhibit was developed by the Kentucky Historical Society and sponsored by the James Graham Brown Foundation, the Kentucky Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and the Kentucky Historical Society Foundation with a grant of $500,000 from the James Graham Brown Foundation.