CHARLESTON - Exposed on every side to the great battlefield of the elements, some of the Lincolns are showing surface cracks and other hurts.

But their creator comes bearing epoxy to bind up their wounds. Chain saw carver Bill Monken says the life-size log Lincolns he created for the Lincoln Springs Resort near Charleston are hewn from native oak and, with a little skin care, will endure far longer than the original on whom they're based.

"We've got barns made of this oak that have lasted 100 years," says Monken, who has lasted 66 years himself. "These carvings will be here for many lifetimes."

There are some 19 chain saw Lincolns in all, and they were created in a series stretching back to 2005. Twelve of the painted carvings describe the trajectory of Lincoln's life from boyhood to the Gettysburg Address, that apotheosis of oratory delivered just 18 months before John Wilkes Booth's bullet extracted the last full measure of devotion from the 16th president in 1865.

The wooden biography is now housed in a pretty spot, still under construction, called "Abe's Garden" which forms just one extraordinary feature of this extraordinary place. Dominating all is a more than 70-foot-tall fiberglass and steel Lincoln statue that, with right arm raised and index finger pointing upwards, looks forever on the cusp of making a point we'll never hear. Monken didn't have a hand in that one, but we'll explain the giant Lincoln in a moment.

Lincoln Springs Resort is themed heavily around Honest Abe, and when it needed an enduring look into every aspect of the Railsplitter's life, it turned to the chain saw wielder from Charleston. A former Charleston High School football coach ("I hold a record: hired and fired five times at the same school," he recalls with a deeply carved smile), Monken was nevertheless born with a talent for art. When he retired from the field nine years ago, he returned to tackle the muse still stirring his soul.

Monken can command healthy fees, whipping up anything from snarling grizzlies to German Belsnickel-style Santas, but finds Lincoln particularly irresistible.

"Always been enthusiastic about him, and what he endured and achieved," explains Monken. "I've read a lot of stuff about him."

None of the painted resort carvings look very enthused themselves or even close to cracking a smile. They include Lincoln sitting on a log reading as a 6-year-old boy to the president signing the Emancipation Proclamation while holding the hand of a little African-American child (pure whimsy, but Monken says he couldn't resist the image). Abe appears consistently grim throughout.

"Well, he wasn't a very happy guy," explains Monken. "I tried to portray him as he became and, at the end, he was a very sad person, a very sad man."

Lincoln's ability to endure outrageous fortune's slings and arrows and yet stick to what he believed in is a big part of what makes him so appealing to Augustine Oruwari, who took over the dilapidated former campground that became Lincoln Springs in 2002. He said he was approached about developing the 130-acre wooded site, wrapped around a lake, into lots for up-market homes, but the Nigerian-born businessman rejected the idea.

"I wanted this place to be available for everybody, for everybody to be able to come here and enjoy it, not just the few," he says. "That is what I believe is right."

He's been as good as his word and has opened his wallet to make it happen. The place now boasts a new Stovepipe Grill & Smokehouse restaurant, multiple meeting rooms, including a computer gaming center, and that 40-acre lake is stocked with fish and offers bucolic boat tours. There also is a new 18-hole miniature golf course and giant pond for ornamental koi carp.

Visible from everywhere and every activity is the towering Lincoln statue, which Oruwari inherited when he took over the campground. David Kirsch, Lincoln Springs chief operations officer, said what's billed as the tallest Lincoln in the world was created in 1969 for $20,000 to adorn a Charleston Lincoln attraction that was never built. It was moved to its present location in 1978 but was in danger of perishing from the face of the earth when the old park closed in the 1990s and vandal hordes swept in.

"The right index finger was missing, although we still had the finger, and he had been shot with shotguns and had holes all over him," says Kirsch. "We had a company do a lot of restoration work, and he was finished in 2005 and looks great."

The Lincoln world he presides over today with malice toward none and charity toward all is set to keep on growing. Expansion plans include guest log cabins, a camp for recreational vehicles and trailers and a water park with waterslide. Another coming attraction, with work due to begin this year, will host an appeal to the more aggressive angels of our nature: a Civil War-themed paintball course fronted by Monken's chain saw carvings of Lincoln, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

"You choose your battle and, afterwards, you can have your photograph taken with your general, whether you were defeated or victorious," says Kirsch, adding that victors also will get a certificate proclaiming their glory.

But the most encouraging news is that, in a distinct improvement over Gettysburg, the hallowed dead rise again and get to join everybody else for barbecue ribs in the Stovepipe Grill & Smokehouse.

Tony Reid can be reached at treid@herald-review.com or 421-7977.