Old Fort Hare State Park is one of Kentucky's original four state parks, the centerpiece of the park.

A full scale replica of the fort built to hundred and 50 years ago by James Harrod, who founded Harrodsburg, which is Kentucky's oldest city.

Here's a look at how they're keeping the fort's historical footprint alive.

In Mercer County.

Old Fort Herod's state park commemorates the oldest permanent settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains.

And we have a full scale reconstruct it fort that is all is one third of the size of the original Fort Herod.

So as you come on any other day of the year, you're going to experience the fort and then reenact.

There are interpreters inside the fort interpreting history.

We have the Lincoln Marriage Temple, which houses the cabin that Abraham Lincoln's parents were first were married in.

And we also have a federal monument.

We have the oldest cemetery in the state of Kentucky here on the grounds.

And it's just a wonderful city.

It operates as a city park and a state park.

We're right in this dead center of town.

So we get a whole slew of people from the local community that come here everyday and just enjoy the park.

I'm a professional farrier and blacksmith as you horses.

And I actually got my start here in the blacksmith shop next door.

Fort Hare is just a very rare treasure because it's it is so accurate to what Herod and them had, you know, on a slightly smaller scale.

Of course, all your timbers have been hand-hewn and cut and you know, the I mean, it's just beautifully preserved.

Everything has been meticulously brought back.

We've been apart for since the late 1800s.

So I like to say we were the very first permanent or very first park in the Parks department.

And we'll be celebrating our 100th year next year in 1920 and 2025.

This is Kentucky history.

This is where all of Kentucky started.

And that's our tagline for the 2/50 Kentucky starts here.

This was the first permanent settlement in the state of Kentucky.

This is where all things happened.

This is this was the really the gateway to the West.

All Western expansion of the original 13 colonies flow through Harrodsburg in the early days.

So that's what a fort here it is to me.

Now it's different things to different people.

Of course.

I remember being a kid and coming out here on field trips and it just stirred my imagination.

This fort stands as a as a huge monument and an interactive monument to that.

And I'll I'll fight for it.

I'll do whatever I can to see that it keeps going.