In Greenfield, Indiana, along the old National Road, this house preserves the boyhood home of James Whitcomb Riley, one of the most famous poets of his era. Riley was born on the site in 1849 in an earlier cabin, and his father, Reuben Riley, Greenfield’s first mayor, built the larger house between 1850 and 1853, reusing parts of the cabin. The home’s lively mix of family life, law-office visitors, and local characters helped shape Riley’s storytelling and later poems. After the family sold the house in 1870, Riley bought it back in 1893. Greenfield acquired the property in 1936, and it remains a museum tied to his legacy.