My Old Kentucky Home State Park

About this park

My Old Kentucky Home State Park preserves Federal Hill, the historic Bardstown mansion said to have inspired composer Stephen Foster's 1853 song "My Old Kentucky Home," which the state adopted as its official song in 1928. The Commonwealth acquired the property for use as a park with an official dedication on July 4, 1923, and it passed to the state park system in 1936 to expand recreational offerings around the historic mansion. The park's cultural significance runs deep: it was honored on a 29-cent postage stamp in 1992, and its image appeared on Kentucky's state quarter in 2001, the 15th quarter released in the U.S. Mint's 50 State Quarters program. Each summer, the outdoor musical "Stephen Foster – The Musical" is performed under the stars in the park's amphitheater, and guided tours of the 19th-century mansion itself are available through the visitor center. Set in the heart of Bardstown, itself known as the "Bourbon Capital of the World" and home to distilleries including Heaven Hill, Jim Beam, and Maker's Mark, the park also offers the Kenny Rapier Golf Course, an 18-hole regulation course, alongside gardens, tennis courts, a playground, and a campground recently renovated with $4 million in state funding, making it both a historical landmark and an active recreational destination.