Inside of the stockades

Old Fort Harrod State Park was the result of years of effort by members of the Kentucky Pioneer Memorial Association, organized in, and led by, Harrodsburg residents in 1923.  Its goal was a tribute to the first permanent white settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains.  The Association selected the site of the present state park and raised support for the construction of a replica of James Harrod’s fort.  This “frontier cradle of advancing civilization in pioneer America” now preserves Kentucky’s pioneer history with displays of tools, furniture, and various other artifacts and through interpreters in period clothing performing pioneer tasks such as blacksmithing, weaving, and wood working.