Which Country Invented the Log Cabin?

The oldest log homes are said to date from 30BC, a pile of logs stacked up to form a pyramid (is that why Richard chose the name Keops?) but the answer is probably Scandinavia 4,000 years ago. Metal tools in the Bronze age made it possible to build a warm and substantial building in a short space of time. They were found all across northern Europe.

There is a theory that the Minoan’s and Mycenaen’s one-roomed house was originally made from horizontal pine logs, so it could be that the ancient Greeks also have a claim on the log cabin.

Swedish and Finnish settlements in Delaware in the 1630s eventually brought the cabin to America. If you’re lucky enough to visit Hodgenville in Kentucky, the museum there features the log cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born…which was actually built thirty years after his death!

And don’t think about doing the touristy bit and taking one for the album with you posing beside the legendary cabin, the US National Park Service has banned flash photography in case it damages the historic logs.

Abe Lincoln’s birthplace