Posted on Mon, Mar. 24, 2008

Lincoln sculpture of lore proposed as tourist draw

By John Cheves

JCHEVES@HERALD-LEADER.COM

BOONEVILLE --

Owsley County wants tourists, and like many other places, it's pinning its hopes on Abraham Lincoln.

The nation's 16th president, whose much-hyped bicentennial is next year, never came here. But in the early 1930s, in the depths of the Great Depression, a wandering pack peddler named Granville Johnson did.

According to sometimes contradictory local histories, Johnson was 70 years old and sick and needed shelter. The family of John Williams Sr. cared for him on their farm south of Booneville. As he recovered his strength, Johnson took hammer and chisel and climbed the hill behind the Williams' farm, day after day, mysteriously.

At summer's end, Johnson unveiled for his hosts a thank-you gift, a life-size sculpture of Lincoln cut into the flat side of a large sandstone boulder near the hill's summit. Lincoln wore a long coat and clutched a book -- perhaps a Bible -- in his left hand. His right arm ended at the elbow. The artist might have run out of time, or, rock being an imperfect sculpting material, everything below the elbow might have broken off.

Johnson claimed he was an Italian sculptor. Maybe that was true. His Lincoln remains in fine shape seven decades later. It's identifiably Abe. The Smithsonian American Art Museum lists it in a national inventory of folk art.

The sculpture rests on land owned by Clyde and Diana Combs -- she is a Williams by birth -- and when they recently moved to Winchester, Owsley County saw its chance. It plans to buy the property using $80,000 in coal-severance money and apply for arts- or history-related government grants to clean up the site, build a hiking trail and turn it into a tourist attraction. An appraisal is under way.

Ambitious county officials said they might clear a campground on the property's flat land and put a few hillside cabins around the sculpture so visitors can "spend the night with Abe." It would tie in nicely with Owsley County's golf course, they said, as well as the all-terrain vehicle and horse trails that Owsley and neighboring counties are creating.

Not everyone agrees tourism is a realistic idea for this remote, rural area, or that if it is, a Lincoln icon would be a major draw.

"I know there are some people who think we're crazy to do this, including some people in this county, but this is the community's one chance to purchase this sculpture and make something of it," said Owsley Judge-Executive Cale Turner. "I think it will make a good investment. Time will tell."

In fact, based on word of mouth, out-of-state tour buses occasionally stop at the property and block the two-lane highway so people can take a gander, Clyde Combs said. Of course, Combs added, given the steep and muddy climb required to reach Lincoln, some tourists just hand their cameras to their hapless bus drivers and ask for a good photo, rather than make the trek themselves.

Nobody is sure what happened to Johnson, the artist. He might have wandered on to Ohio and died there, although one historical account puts his death in 1930, several years before the other stories have him carving Abe, so it's hard to say. Nor can anyone explain his choice of Lincoln.

"That's the big secret," Combs said.

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