Jefferson Davis State Historic Site

About this park

Jefferson Davis State Historic Site marks the birthplace of Jefferson Davis, who would go on to become president of the Confederate States of America, in the small community of Fairview in Todd County. The site's dominant feature is a 351-foot concrete obelisk, constructed between 1917 and 1924, which was believed to be the fourth-tallest monument in the United States and the tallest cast-concrete monument anywhere at the time of its completion. Confederate general Simon Bolivar Buckner Sr. first proposed the monument at a reunion of the Confederate Army's Orphan Brigade in 1907, and the obelisk's massive concrete walls, 8.5 feet thick at the base and tapering to 2.5 feet at the top, were built directly on quarried limestone bedrock. The monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and underwent a major renovation, including a new visitor center, completed in 2004. An elevator carries visitors more than 350 feet up the obelisk to observation windows overlooking the surrounding Kentucky countryside, while the ground-level museum uses video and exhibits, including a table that belonged to Davis himself, to trace his life and the monument's construction. The 19-acre park also includes picnic areas and a playground, and is seasonally open from May through October.