On your left, look for the wide paved parking lot with a big, bare-branched tree in front and a light-colored, older two-story house sitting back from the street.
This spot is the missing tooth in a very old smile. Around 1840, Reverend James Davis Hines built what became known as the Hines House right here, when Bowling Green was still more porch-sitting than traffic-light. Picture hand-hewn timbers, oil lamps, and the kind of quiet where you can hear footsteps on floorboards. Over time, the house changed hands: Hines sold it, N. E. Goodsall owned it next, and in 1859 Goodsall’s heirs passed it along to Doctor Albert Covington... a pretty classic Kentucky story of sermons, sales, and a physician making house calls.
By 1979, the place was so rare it earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places... one of the last survivors of its era. Then, on February 12, 1995, someone set an intentional fire, and the house was lost. History doesn’t always get a graceful ending.
When you’re ready, W.H. Everhardt House is an 11-minute walk heading southwest.
