What’s an Abraham Lincoln Museum doing in Tennessee?! Tennessee was the last state to secede from the US during the Civil War and while most of Tennessee was strongly Confederate, eastern Tennessee stayed pro-Union. Cumberland Gap in east Tennessee was a communication and supply line for the south and changed hands several times during the war. Many east Tennesseans engaged in guerrilla warfare or fought in the Union army. In 1897, long after the war had ended, General Oliver O. Howard, a former Union officer, and Reverend A. A. Myers established Lincoln Memorial University at Harrogate, Tennessee, just south of Cumberland Gap, to honor Lincoln who had often expressed a desire to do something for the people of east Tennessee.
The university began receiving Lincoln memorabilia and eventually had to build a museum to house all of it. The museum has some personal artifacts such as Lincoln’s cane, a beautifully crafted cupboard built by his father, some very nice dioramas, lots of photographs and historic exhibits. It’s not very big so it doesn’t take a lot of time to see everything.
The first floor where most of the exhibits are located is accessible. Plans are in place for installing an elevator to access the second floor gallery but for now there are only steps.
The parking lot is large enough for RVs. Museum
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