General Information / Education / Medical / Cultural /
Entertainment The History ... Cumberland Gap has been used as a
crossing point in the Appalachian Mountains. Animals have used
it as a path to the green pastures of Kentucky. Native Americans
used the Gap as the Warrior's Path that led from the Potomac
River down the south side of the Appalachians through the Gap
and north to "The Dark and Bloody Ground" known as Kentucky and
on to Ohio. In 1750 Dr. Thomas Walker found the Gap and mapped
its location, but the French and Indian Wars closed the new
frontiers. Daniel Boone and many other long-hunters used the Gap
to the Kentucky hunting grounds. In 1775, after the Treaty of
Sycamore Shoals ended most Indian troubles, Boone and thirty men
marked out the Wilderness Trail from what is now Kingsport
Tennessee through the Cumberland Gap to Kentucky. Part of the
Wilderness Road can be walked in Cumberland Gap, Tennessee by
the Iron Furnace. Before the Revolutionary War over 12,000
people crossed into the new front