Town prepares for Lincoln bicentennial

HODGENVILLE, Ky. -- The town square in this small central Kentucky city is being transformed into a circle to accommodate as many as a million visitors during Abraham Lincoln's bicentennial birthday celebration next year.

The nation's 16th president was born in 1809 in a one-room log cabin near what is now Hodgenville, and that's where the national bicentennial celebration will begin Feb. 12, 2008. President Bush has been invited.

The bicentennial will continue until February 2010, with other events planned in Washington, D.C., as well as in Illinois and Indiana, where Lincoln also lived. Other Kentucky events are planned between 2008 and early 2010.

Construction crews in Hodgenville began work late last month to create a roundabout in the downtown to ease traffic. The project also will replace deteriorating sidewalks, get rid of overhead electric and telephone lines, add early American-style street lamps and create an area for visitors to use to photograph statues of Lincoln.

The project is expected to be completed by Oct. 14.