When I was a kid I loved building things with Tinker Toys, LEGOs, and couch cushions that served as the best walls for a perfect living room fort. But my favorite construction set was always Lincoln Logs.
It’s probably why I am so fascinated by tiny house architecture.
There was something so simple, elegant, and rustic about the pint-size cabin once it was completed. I just wanted to plop the structure in some pastoral paradise, hunker down inside of it, and recite the Gettysburg Address (which I can do, it’s my favorite party trick). It was just too small.
But thanks to a model featured by Better Home Designs, I finally can, and it’s just a classy and cozy as other contemporary cabins.
The online magazine shows the process of creating a log cabin from the ground up and, interestingly enough, it’s not much different from playing with one of my favorite childhood toys. But that's not all, did you know that log cabins actually have a pretty interesting history? Believe me, it’s really truly fascinating to see and read…
Most Americans associate log cabins with the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, but did you know that log cabins predate the U.S.?
A Roman architect named Vitruvius Pollio noted that in Pontus (modern-day northeastern Turkey) dwellings were made by laying logs overtop of each other and filling in the gaps with "chips and mud.”
Yet, the structures we would recognize as a traditional log cabin finds its roots in the Bronze Age (about 3500 BC) and was popular in Scandinavian countries, Germany, Northern Russia, and Ukraine.
A medieval log cabin was also considered a mobile home. The buildings were disassembled, transported to a new location, and then reassembled. This is how a village in Finland called Espåby was completely relocated in 1557.
The Wood Museum in Trondheim, Norway, actually displays fourteen different traditional models that predate the existence of the United States. North American settlers from Europe brought the design idea with them when they moved to the New World.
Lincoln’s log cabin also has an interesting history.
The original log cabin that Lincoln was reputed to have been born in was dismantled sometime before 1865. Local tradition held that some of the logs from the cabin were used in construction of a nearby house.
New York businessman A.W. Dennett purchased the Lincoln farm in 1894 and used the logs from this house to construct a cabin that looked like the original cabin where Lincoln was born. The cabin was dismantled and re-erected for display in many cities.
The cabin that is present in the Lincoln Memorial was constructed with a combination of logs from Dennett’s recreation, a cabin falsely associated with the birthplace of Jefferson Davis, and a third unremarkable cabin.
Writer Richard Armour even wrote in his satirical book, It All Started With Columbus, that Lincoln had been born in three states and also "in two cabins — the original, and the reconstructed."
This particular cabin is only 650 square feet, and can be purchased for $12,000.
It would be the perfect holiday getaway home for an outdoorsy family.
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h/t: Better Home Design
