Hodgenville, Kentucky

Hodgenville is a home rule-class city in LaRue County, Kentucky, in the United States. It is the seat of its county. It sits along the North Fork of the Nolin River. The population was 3,206 at the 2010 census. It is included in the Elizabethtown metropolitan area.

History

An English-born Virginian, Robert Hodgen purchased 10,000 acres of land in the vicinity. In 1789, after the American Revolutionary War, when settlers started moving west into Kentucky, he built a mill at the site. After his death, the community that developed around it was called Hodgenville upon the petition of his widow and children. The United States post office at the site, however, was known as Hodgensville from 1826 to 1904.

The city was formally incorporated by the state assembly on February 18, 1836.

Abraham Lincoln was born in a small cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville on February 12, 1809. About two years later, the family moved to another farm in the Hodgenville area. Despite claims made later, the cabin Lincoln was born in was likely destroyed by the time of his assassination.