BGuthrie Photos: TN -- Cumberland Gap NHP (TN side incl town)

BGuthrie Photos: TN -- Cumberland Gap NHP (TN side incl town) TN -- Cumberland Gap NHP (TN side incl town):

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. CUMGAP_081012_001_STITCH.JPG: The following pictures are from the page 2008_KY_Cumberland_Gap KY -- Cumberland Gap NHP (KY side incl vistas) (109 photos from 2008)
  Looking south from the vantage point
2. CUMGAP_081012_002_STITCH.JPG: Looking over the hump from the vantage point. The tri-state border is somewhere in front of us.
3. CUMGAP_081012_003.JPG: Lewis and Clark in Kentucky Cumberland Gap: Meriwether Lewis, coleader of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, with a party of Expedition veterans and a Mandan Indian delegation, went through Cumberland Gap in Nov. 1806 en route to Washington to report on the expedition. (Over)
4. CUMGAP_081012_006.JPG: Gateway to Kaintuck: For travelers who had to walk, the Appalachian mountains seemed like an impenetrable wall, 600 miles long and 150 miles wide. Here at Cumberland Gap, you could find both a good way in and a good way out of that rugged labyrinth of ridges, coves, and meandering streams. Woodland buffalo and parties of Cherokee and Shawnee passed north and south over this wilderness road for thousands of years. Frontier-era longhunters and settler families followed their trails, climbing up to the Gap and dropping into Yellow Creek's valley. Once past Pine Mountain Narrows, they were well on their way to reach the Kentucky bluegrass and the rich Ohio River bottomlands.
5. CUMGAP_081012_033.JPG: A Mountain Passage: Carved by an Ancient River: Cumberland Gap is the result of four geologic features combining to create a natural opening through the Appalachian Mountains. Long ago, this land was flat, and Yellow Creek flowed south into Powell River. When the earth began to push up, creating the Cumberland Mountains, the Creek cut a notch. Beyond the notch lies Yellow Creek Valley and Middlesboro Basin, a large flat area. Together they form a passageway to The Narrows at Pine Mountain, which leads to the Bluegrass region of Kentucky. These natural features made it possible for pioneers and others to cross the Appalachian Mountains, which otherwise blocked westward passage. "The Gap may be seen at a considerable distance, and there is no other, that I know of, except one about two miles North of it, which does not appear to be so low as the other." -- Thomas Walker, 1750
6. CUMGAP_081012_034.JPG: Cumberland Gap: Where Many Paths Cross: For centuries Cumberland Gap has been a natural transportation corridor for people and animals traveling through the Appalachian Mountains. Bison and other game animals, following lines of least resistance, established the first paths through the old-growth forest. American Indians, and later Europeans followed these routes on hunting and trading expeditions. As explorers and long hunters documented this new frontier, the promise of abundant, fertile land attracted pioneer settlers. Between 1755 and 1810, 200,000 to 300,000 people crossed the mountains at Cumberland Gap in their westward journey. Today visitors can follow the footsteps of those who preceded them as they hike the Wilderness Road and experience nature's solitude within the park. "Stand at Cumberland Gap and watch the procession of civilization, marching single file -- the buffalo following the trail to the salt springs, the Indians, the fur-traders and hunter, the cattle raiser, the farmer -- and the frontier has passed by." -- Frederick Jackson Turner, 1893
7. CUMGAP_081012_039.JPG: Earliest Travelers: Traveling the Beaten Path: Cumberland Gap is a natural corridor through the Appalachian Mountains. American Indians were the first people to use the paths created and hardened by bison and other animals. In particular, the Shawnee, who lived in the Ohio Valley, and the Cherokee, who established themselves in the Appalachian Valley highlands, hunted, fished, gathered wild plants, and cultivated maize. They traveled across the Gap on hunting and trading expeditions and during periods of war.
8. CUMGAP_081012_041.JPG: Earliest Travelers: Trade Routes Through The Gap: When European explorers and traders arrived on North American shores, sources of trade expanded greatly. American Indians were accustomed to exchanging natural items such as pelts, feathers, plants, and minerals such as chert and salt among themselves. That changed when the newcomers arrived. They desired pelts for the lucrative fur trade in Europe and started trading goods for furs. American Indians received items they had never seen or used before, such as copper kettles, guns, knives, scissors, thimbles, mirrors, bolts of woven cloth, and liquor.
9. CUMGAP_081012_045.JPG: Hunters and Explorers: Competing Interests in the Land: In the years leading to and following the American Revolution, Kentucky was being explored and claimed by European land speculators. As they, along with hunters who preceded them, competed with the American Indians for control of the land, conflicts arose. These struggles often ended with a treaty between the American Indians and the Euro-Americans. Virtually every treaty resulted in lost territory for the American Indians and additional land for the Euro-American settlers and westward-moving pioneers. 1763: The Proclamation Line of 1763 was issued by King George III after the Seven Years War. It was intended to pacify the frontier by preventing settlement west of the Appalachian Divide. The American Indians took it seriously; most land speculators ignored it. 1768: In the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, British purchased the land now known as Kentucky from the Iroquois. Although their homeland was in New York, the Iroquois claimed sovereignty over Kentucky. The Shawnee and Cherokee who also lay claim to the land, did not recognize the Iroquois claim. They were not party to the treaty and ultimately lost control of the land. 1775: At the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, land speculator Richard Henderson traded food, clothing, weapons, and money with the Cherokee for 17 million acres of land including right of access to Cumberland Gap. Dragging Canoe, leader of the young Cherokee warriors who opposed land cessions, angrily protested the treaty. Through the end of the 18th century, as American Indians continued to resist the expansion of the United States, they continued to lose their homelands and hunting grounds in the Ohio River Valley to westward moving American settlers.....
10. CUMGAP_081012_046.JPG: Pioneers: Seeking Manifest Destiny: Between 1780 and 1810, 200,000 to 300,000 people traveled the Gap in search of a better life. The dream of settling one's own land and becoming a free, independent landowner was the single most powerful reason people emigrated west. Popular guidebooks such as John Filson's book, The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke, promoted the state with descriptions of fertile soil and abundant riches. To pursue this dream, pioneers risked their lives, suffered from fear and loneliness, and endured physical and emotional hardships. Some found what they envisioned, though it did not come without toll and hardship; however, many homesteaders were disappointed. Yet the promise of Kentucky persisted in Scots-Irish, German, English and other families settled and established communities, bound by the frontier experience.
11. CUMGAP_081012_049.JPG: Industrialists: Creating a "Magic City" in Appalachia: Inspired by stories of hidden wealth in the Cumberlands, Alexander Arthur, an English industrialist, came to Kentucky in 1885 to seek his fortune. Seeing commercial potential in the area of Cumberland Gap, he "set his mind, heart and hands to the laying of plans and carrying out projects which eventually brought Middlesborough to the front as the Magic City." Until 1893 Middlesboro and its inhabitants enjoyed a bustling commerce and lavish social entertainments. It all came to a halt when the English banks that financed this rapid development collapsed.
12. CUMGAP_081012_054.JPG: 20th Century Visitors: Early Tourism: Cumberland Gap began attracting tourists in the 1920s, coinciding with the advent of the automobile. Interest in the pioneer experience was kindled by greater access to the Cumberland Gap via Dixie Highway in 1926 and to the Pinnacle via Skyland Highway in 1929. The historic scenic attractions of the Cumberland Gap were much publicized and in 1940 legislation to create Cumberland Gap National Historic Park was passed. Since the opening of the Cumberland Gap Tunnel in 1996, the Gap maintains its role as a transportation corridor.
13. CUMGAP_081012_056.JPG: Industrialists: Coal Miners: In 1879 a geological survey of the Cumberland Gap region revealed the presence of a wealth of mineral resources, especially coal and iron ore. About ten years later, the Appalachian coal industry was born and with it the need for labor. Former slaves from southern states, who hoped to escape the poverty of sharecropping; local residents, both black and white; and newly arrived European immigrants flocked to Appalachia and found employment in the mines. Many lived in mining camps or rented small homes near the Gap. Extracting coal from the earth was hard and dangerous work. They pay was low; miners and laborers were paid by the ton. An African American laborer hand-loading five to seven tons of coal in a day might have earned only $3.00. Families, in need of more income, often had no choice but to send their young sons to work sorting pieces of coal. For them it was the beginning of lifelong work in the mines.
14. CUMGAP_081012_060.JPG: Two Armies: Civil War Soldiers: Andrew Jackson Snow was 20 years old and living in Tennessee when the Civil war broke out. He decided to enlist in the Union Army in 1861 after General Zollicoffer and his Confederate soldiers took over Eastern Tennessee. He traveled to Kentucky where he began drilling and preparing for battle against General Zollicoffer. In June 1862, Snow's regiment under General George Morgan marched up Powell's Valley and took the Gap without resistance, for the rebels had fled. For the next three months, they camped in a valley south of the Gap. In September, the Confederates started cutting the Union's meager supplies from the north and surrounding them from the south. Snow's unit decided to move out. As they marched in darkness that night, Snow could hear blasting at the Gap, where General Morgan's rear guard was blowing up its own ammunition supplies so they would not fall into Confederate hands.
15. CUMGAP_081012_062.JPG: 20th Century Visitors: Early Motorists: Paved roads and affordable automobiles brought a new type of traveler to Cumberland Gap. Promotional booklets that extolled Kentucky's scenic beauty and romanticized its colorful past attracted tourists to the state. By 1926, motorists could drive from Cumberland Gap to Cincinnati on the Dixie Highway, later known as Route 25. Hotels, restaurants, and garages along the way made the trip far more comfortable than it had ever been. Why Skyland Drive opened in 1929, tourists flocked to the Pinnacle at Cumberland Gap, where the spectacular view was well worth the trip.
16. CUMGAP_081012_063.JPG: 20th Century Visitors: Park Rangers: In 1955, Cumberland Gap was established as a National Historic Park for the benefit and inspiration of the people. Since then, visitors like you have enjoyed the hiking, camping and other recreational activities within the park. With the restoration of the Wilderness Road, you can retrace Daniel Boone's footsteps and imagine the hopes and the fears of the thousands of pioneers who made the arduous journey through Cumberland Gap. We invite you to enjoy your visit.
17. CUMGAP_081012_066.JPG: 20th Century Visitors: Building a Road: By the beginning of the 20th century, the Wilderness Road had become terribly rutted by the wagons, buggies and sleds used by the area's growing population. At the same time, the spectacular mountain scenery and a nostalgia for the past began attracting increasing numbers of people to the region. With the advent of the automobile, far-sighted state leaders realized the need to pave the road. In 1908, with the completion of Object Lesson Road, a Federal demonstration project, the Gap was opened to commercial traffic.
18. CUMGAP_081012_069.JPG: Two Armies: Struggling for Control: During the Civil War, Cumberland Gap was considered a strategic transportation, communications, and supply route. Although no battles were fought at the gap, control of it alternated between the Union and the Confederacy several times. Kentucky and Tennessee were both divided between pro- and anti-slavery supporters. Tennessee seceded from the Union, while Kentucky, with its large population of African Americans remained neutral.
19. CUMGAP_081012_073.JPG: Pioneers: Making the Arduous Journey: In 1775, after Daniel Boone and his crew had blazed the Wilderness Trail, pioneers began journeying westward across the Cumberland Gap in search of new opportunities. The American Revolution was brewing in the East and many people felt the push to leave the uncertainty that came with political unrest. Others, many of them Scots-Irish, were pulled by the promise of land ownership and the rich soil.
20. CUMGAP_081012_074.JPG: Hunters and Explorers: Hunting the Plentiful Game: In the 18th century, European explorers traveling west across Cumberland Gap discovered the rich hunting grounds used by the American Indians. Long hunters, men who went on hunting expeditions for many months at a time, harvested huge quantities of hides and furs to market in the colonies and in Europe. Daniel Boone, who took his first hunting trip to Kentucky in 1769, was one of many long hunters in the region. American Indians became resentful of the intruders with whom they now had to compete for game animals.
21. CUMGAP_081012_077.JPG: Pioneers: Land Settlers: David Barrow, a Baptist minister impressed by stories of the land that lay beyond the Appalachian Mountains, decided to leave Virginia in 1795 to settle in Kentucky. Barrow, like many pioneers, felt the pull of owning and farming the fertile Kentucky soil. In relatively unsettled Kentucky, he and pioneers of all regions, ethnic backgrounds, and occupation traveled through the Gap to start a new life.
22. CUMGAP_081012_080.JPG: Pioneers; Kentucky Immigrants: In 1783 or 1784, Jane Allen Trimble, with her husband and family, decided to emigrate to Kentucky. Her husband had served in the American Revolution. Like many solders, he had been awarded a Kentucky land warrant for his military duty. Excited about the prospect of owning land in Kentucky, the Trimble family left their home in Staunton, Virginia one September morning in the company of several other families, some with servants or slaves. Before they crossed Cumberland Gap, more than 500 other pioneers had joined their party. Two months later, they reached Crab Orchard, Kentucky. They had survived the outbreak of measles and a treacherous river crossing. What they greatly feared -- attack by American Indians -- hadn't happened.
23. CUMGAP_081012_085.JPG: Hunters and Explorers: Peace Advocates: John Logan, represented here, was the son of an Iroquois chief and considered himself a friend of the settlers and advocated peace. But when his family was tragically murdered in 1774 in retaliation for a robbery committed by another group of American Indians, he took revenge. With resentment already high over the intrusions of explorers, hunters, and settlers, the fighting that ensued led to Dunmore's War. The battle, led by Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, eventually forced the Shawnee to cede lands in the Ohio Valley to the English. Land speculating by Euro-Americans continued, and new settlements were established along the Ohio River and beyond Cumberland Gap.
24. CUMGAP_081012_088.JPG: Hunters and Explorers: Trail Blazers: Daniel Boone had become familiar with Cumberland Gap during his many expeditions to Kentucky as a long hunter. In 1775, on the eve of the American Revolution, land speculator Richard Henderson commissioned Boone to lead a group of axmen to blaze a trail through Cumberland gap. Henderson's efforts to establish a colony are all but forgotten. However, the trail Boone marked is still known as the Wilderness Road. It opened the way for the migration of 100,000s of pioneers through the Gap to western territories.
25. CUMGAP_081012_090.JPG: Earliest Travelers: Hunters and Warriors: This Cherokee depended on the abundance of game he found on the west side of Cumberland Gap. Using a bow and arrows with chert points, he hunted bison, deer, and elk. These animals provided him good, furs for clothing, and a source for weapons, tools, and jewelry. Occasionally, opposing tribes fought for control of the land. The Iroquois claimed the Cumberland area by right of conquest, while the Shawnee and Cherokee believed it to be a common hunting ground. They traveled through Kentucky on a trail Algonquin-speaking tribes called Athawominee, which meant "path of the armed ones." The pioneers later called it the Warrior's Path. Fighting between the American Indian tribes only increased after Euro-American hunters arrived seeking valuable pelts, which increased the competition for the game animals.
26. CUMGAP_081012_094.JPG: Earliest Travelers: Explorers & Land Seekers: Dr. Thomas Walker, physician and explorer for the Loyal Land Company, an Anglo-American land speculation company, set off in 1750 "to go to the Westward in order to discover a proper Place for Settlement." While looking for an 800,000-acre land grant, he passed through Cumberland Gap, which he described in his journal. Although he was the first person known to have written about the gap, which he named in honor of England's Duke of Cumberland, he and his companions knew they were not the first human beings there. Markings on the laurel trees seemed to indicate a trail.
27. CUMGAP_081012_151.JPG: Two-Way Traffic: Two hundred years ago, pioneers poured through Cumberland gap on their way west to a better life. But not all the traffic on the Wilderness Road was westbound. By the 1820s, drovers pushed huge herds of hogs and smaller herds of cattle and sheep eastward through the Gap to markets in Baltimore, Richmond, and Charleston, hundreds of miles from the growing Kentucky settlements. Before Daniel Boone, there was Dr. Thomas Walker. Cumberland Gap still bears the name Dr. Thomas Walker gave it when he came over the mountain in 1750 with a party of Virginia real estate speculators. Wheeler was a wealthy neighbor of Peter Jefferson, father of future president Thomas Jefferson. the journals and maps of Dr. Walker's trans-Appalachian travels promoted emigration west into Kentucky. Hogs and Whiskey: Kentucky's soil was rich, but cattle was scarce on the frontier. Hogs brought from the East escaped into the fertile woods and canebrakes; their numbers exploded. Unlike other bulky farm products, hogs could carry themselves to distant markets. Whiskey also made big money for western settlers. Distillation concentrated the value of acres of corn into a high-dollar liquor that was cheaper to transport and easier to sell than the bulky grain.
28. CUMGAP_081012_155.JPG: Object Lesson Road sign. You'll see a close-up of the upper portion next.
29. CUMGAP_081012_174.JPG: An Object Lesson Road: The next half-mile of trail follows the 1907 roadbed of an "Object Lesson Road." Early in the 20th century, most rural roads, especially here in the Appalachians, were little better than in the days of Daniel Boone. The US Department of Agriculture sponsored the building of short segments of smooth, crushed-rock roads graded for good drainage in key, high-visibility spots around the nation. The object of the lesson was to convince voters of the convenience and value of building better roads with up-to-date techniques. This model road was paid for by subscriptions. All the names of the contributors from Middletown, Bell County (Kentucky), Lee County (Virginia), and Claiborne County (Tennessee) were published in the Middlesboro News -- along with the amount they gave -- after the roadwork was completed. One many gave $100. Some people subscribed for as little as $1.
30. CUMGAP_081012_176.JPG: Object Lesson Road
31. CUMGAP_081012_194.JPG: The view from the Cumberland Gap itself
32. CUMGAP_081012_205.JPG: Indian Rock Daniel Boone's Trail from North Carolina to Kentucky 1775. Marked by St. Asaphs Chapter of Kentucky Daughters of the American Revolution 1915.
33. CUMGAP_081012_223.JPG: Defense of the Gap: During the Civil War, this earthwork -- called Fort Rains by the Confederates and Fort McCook by the Federals -- was one of many fortifications ringing Cumberland Gap. These defenses were considered too formidable to be taken by direct assault, which accounts for the small number of soldiers killed here. The poor roads and rough country of the Gap made it difficult to resupply the outposts. An attacker could simply cut off supply lines, leaving the forts with little tactical value. Later in the war, General Ulysses S. Grant visited this area and declared the Gap unusable as an invasion route because of the condition of the roads. Defense of the Gap was no longer strategically important.
34. CUMGAP_081012_225.JPG: Fort Rains / Fort McCook
35. CUMGAP_081012_236.JPG: Middlesboro, Kentucky
36. CUMGAP_081012_245.JPG: Invasion through the Gap: For the North, Cumberland Gap was a natural invasion route into the South -- providing access to vulnerable railroads and valuable minerals and salt works in East Tennessee and southwest Virginia. For the South, the Gap was a gateway for an invasion of Kentucky to drive out the Federal foe. Cumberland Gap exchanged hands four times during the Civil War: August, 1861: Confederates fortify Cumberland Gap. June 18, 1862: Union forces under General Morgan occupy the Gap. September 17, 1862: Confederate General Stevenson forces evacuation of Union troops from the gap as the Confederates push into northern Kentucky's Bluegrass region begins. September 9, 1863: Union forces under General Burnside accept surrender of General Frazier's 2,300-man Confederate garrison at the Gap. Cumberland Gap remains in Northern hands for duration of the war.
37. CUMGAP_081012_252.JPG: Dirt and Log Forts: "[Cumberland Gap] is the roughest place in the world, but we are going to stick the mountain full of cannon to prevent the Lincolnites from crossing" -- Letter of Confederate soldier, November 1861 Where you see a picnic ground today, imagine a Civil war fort the size of four football fields side-by-side atop this knoll. The outer walls, made of packed earth faced with logs, rose 10 feet high. Like the other batteries, forts, and rifle pits here in the Gap, this outpost was continuously garrisoned by Confederates or Federals from 1861 until 1865. Troops posted here guarded the Harlan Road, the best way up Pinnacle Mountain. "It sickens one to the heart to witness the waste of war. The rebels left standing 400 to 500 tends, but... all but four or five were slit to ribbons. Flour, meat, rice, and beans were strewn all over the surface of the fortifications and hillsides... Tons of shot and shell were thrown over the cliffs into the ravines below." -- Benjamin F. Stevenson, surgeon, 22nd Kentucky Volunteer Infantry Regiment, June 19, 1852.
38. CUMGAP_081012_263.JPG: Pinnacle Overlook: "We started just as the sun began to gild the tops of the high mountains. We ascended Cumberland Mountain, from the top of which the bright luminary of day appeared to our view in all his rising glory; the mists dispersed and the floating clouds hasted away at his appearing. This is the famous Cumberland Gap..." -- Journal of James Smith, 1792
39. CUMGAP_081012_279.JPG: Border between Kentucky and Virginia
40. CUMGAP_081012_280.JPG: Path to Pinnacle Overlook
41. CUMGAP_081012_289.JPG: (Pinnacle Overlook) Generations Have Enjoyed this View: "I cannot conceive of anyone passing this way who will not avail himself to taking this trail to the top of Pinnacle Mountain... there will be many pilgrimages... [to] this historic spot... The beauty of the mountains, the spirit of the pioneer and the patriotic fervor have a unity of appeal found nowhere else in America." -- Myers Cooper, Governor of Ohio, at the dedication of Skyland Highway, June 4, 1929 Pinnacle Mountain's Skyland Highway paved the way to create a National Park. Called 'an engineering marvel" when it first opened in 1929, Skyland Highway provided an easy drive to stunning views. Sightseers in the 1930s climbed a wooden platform to enjoy what the Sky Land Company called "the Garden of Gazes." In the late 1940s, widespread support for a national park at Cumberland Gap steadily grew as vacation travel boomed after World War II. The Dixie Highway: In the early 20th century, vacationers wanted to "see America first" -- by car. Motor enthusiasts joined clubs like the Dixie Highway Association. From 1915 to 1927, the Association encouraged states to pave a system of roads so that a motorist could drive all the way from Ontario south to Miami. The Dixie Highway introduced tens of thousands of travelers from across the nation to Cumberland gap. From the 1890s on, nearby Chimney Rock was a popular day-trip destination for excursionists coming up from Middlesboro.
42. CUMGAP_081012_292.JPG: (Pinnacle Overlook) Named for a British Lord: The town you see 1,400 feet below, the mountain on which you stand, and the Gap itself all bear the name of an English royal -- the Duke of Cumberland, Prince William Augustus (1721-1765( was the third and favorite son of King George II. The popular young nobleman was sometimes called "Sweet William" after he successfully crushed the 1745 Jacobite rebellion in Scotland. In Virginia, Peter Jefferson, Joshua Fry, and Thomas Walker -- all politically well-connected planters -- formed the Loyal Land Company in 1949 to sell Virginia's western lands. The Governor's Council in Williamsburg granted Loyal Land title to 800,000 acres west of these mountains. Sometime after Thomas Walker explored here in 1750, the gap was named for Sweet William.
43. CUMGAP_081012_310.JPG: Cumberland, Tennessee
44. CUMGAP_081012_314.JPG: You can see where the road disappears into the mountain -- that's the Cumberland Tunnel.
45. CUMGAP_081012_315.JPG: Northward is Middlesboro, Kentucky
46. CUMGAP_081012_319.JPG: Middlesboro, Kentucky
47. CUMGAP_081012_327.JPG: (Pinnacle Overlook) A Maze of Mountains: The Cumberland Mountains on which you stand are only one link in a great chain of ridges and valleys that stretch 900 miles from New England to Alabama. The Appalachian wilderness was a 150-mile-wide wall for settlers looking west in the late 1700s. Nature provided only three good routes for a mass migration through the maze; the Mohawk Valley, in upstate New York, the Potomac's passage that linked the Chesapeake to the Ohio valley, and the Gap you see below. For some 300,000 pioneers from the mid-Atlantic and southern states, this was the best road west.
48. CUMGAP_081012_332.JPG: Tri-state peak is the little orange glob of trees in the center of the photo.
49. CUMGAP_081012_338.JPG: Graffiti by the damned
50. CUMGAP_081012_340.JPG: Powell's Valley
51. CUMGAP_081012_348.JPG: (Pinnacle Overlook) Powell's Valley: The names of the valley, river, and mountains that stretch before you echo the names of long-hunters and explorers of the mid-18th century. Frontiersman Ambrose Powell came here with the Loyal Land Company expedition in April 1750. Long hunter Elisha Wilden saw Powell's name and initials still carved on many trees when he hunted buffalo, elk, bear, and deer in the valley below in the 1760s. For wildlife and pioneer alike, Powell Valley provided a broad, easy travel corridor to the Gap.
52. CUMGAP_081012_380.JPG: Middlesboro, Kentucky
53. CUMGAP_081012_399.JPG: Boundaries Settled: The exact spot where Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia meet is not easy to see on the ridge line below. Nor was it easy to determine. In 1665, Great Britain's King Charles II declared his Virginia colony was to be separated from his Carolina colony by a line drawn at latitude 36 degrees 30. Surveyors started at the Atlantic Ocean in 1728 to run the line westward to the Mississippi. Decades of boundary disputes followed, first between Virginia and North Carolina. Later, Tennessee and Kentucky joined the fray. The most ragged segment of the old Carolina-Virginia boundary -- here in the Cumberland Mountains -- was not finally resolved until 1803.
54. CUMGAP_081012_403.JPG: Boundaries settled
55. CUMGAP_081012_425.JPG: "This American Gibraltar" "Cumberland Gap is the strongest position I have ever seen except Gibraltar." These were Union General George W. Morgan's words after viewing the fortification around the Gap. On June 19, 1862, he wrote to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, "The enemy evacuated this American Gibraltar this morning... and DeCourey's brigade took possession..." In honor of the capture, the Stars and Stripes were raised from the pinnacle of this mountain in proud ceremony. Three months later it was the Union troops who withdrew. What made the forts around the Gap so difficult to attack also made them difficult to resupply. It was easier for the war to just go around them.
56. CUMGAP_081012_429.JPG: Waiting For the Battle That Never Came: A natural thoroughfare through the Appalachian Mountain barrier, Cumberland Gap assumed great strategic importance in the Civil War. Both sides sought to control the Gap. It changed hands three times, but no battles were fought. Troops garrisoned here, Union and Confederates alike, endured months of inaction and boredom. Confederate soldier Seth Hannibal Hyatt from Cherokee County, North Carolina, wrote home on April 28, 1863 -- "Dear Father and Mother --: "As I can get no letters from home to revive or divert the weary mind, I thought I would put in a few leisure moments in pening [sic] you a few lines. Notwithstanding I have nothing new to communicate... "We have some tolerably heavy scouting to do... We have learned that there is no army this side Lexington, Kentucky. Hense [sic] we do not apprehend any danger of an attack here soon... We have no war news, everything seems to be still. What can be the matter with the Feds? This time last year they were tickling us on ev'ry rib... "I would prefer being in a country where we could have access to the luxuries of country produce. But we cannot expect to live in clover all the time. Since writing the above we have drawed [sic] meal, bacon and rice. This is the Robinsons and Campbells day to cook, they have dinner and supper almost ready (for we take both together)... "Col. Heart sent a scout down to Barbersville on the 26th inst. They returned yesterday with five yanks. They took six in the town and one started to run when he instantly bit the dust... "Write soon hope to get some letters today. Your devoted son "Seth H. Hyatt"
57. CUMGAP_081012_488.JPG: The Emigrants' Dream: Cumberland Gap, the break in the ridgeline you see ahead, is farm more than just a pass through a long, ragged mountain barrier. For a generation of American pioneers this was the gateway from their old lives and limitations out to a frontier wilderness, full of promise, and the chance to start a better life. "What a buzzel is this amongst people about Kentucke? To hear people speak of it one would think that it was a new found Paradise!" -- Reverend John Brown, 1775 "Ask these Pilgrims what they expect when they git to Kentucke. The Answer is Land. Have you any? No, but I expect I can git it. Have you anything to pay for land? No. Did you Ever see the Country? No, but Every Body says it is good land..." -- Moses Austin, 1796
58. CUMGAP_081012_495.JPG: Emigrants' home (recreation)
59. CUMGAP_081012_508.JPG: The tunnel is off behind the bridge. The saddle on the ridgeline is Cumberland Gap itself.
60. CUMGAP_081012_513.JPG: Cumberland Gap tunnel
61. CUMGAP_980530_01.JPG: The following pictures are from the page 1998_KY_Cumberland_Gap KY -- Cumberland Gap NHP (KY side incl vistas) (5 photos from 1998)
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Wikipedia Description: Cumberland Gap National Historical Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Established on June 11, 1940, Cumberland Gap National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park located at the border between Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia.

The Cumberland Gap is a sizable natural break in the Appalachian Mountains. The gap was long used by Native Americans, as many species of migratory animals passed through it from north to south each year. It was fertile hunting territory and the only easy cut through the mountains from the southern wintering grounds of wild deer and buffalo to their northern summer range. Starting around 1775, the Gap became the primary route of transit for American settlers moving west into Kentucky; between 1775 and 1810 as many as 300,000 settlers may have used the Gap.

The current Park preserves the natural beauty of the surrounding area while focusing more on historic preservation, including tours through the old Hensley Settlement, trips into Gap Cave, also known as Cudjo's Cave, (once used for shelter by traveling Indians and settlers), campfire programs and demonstrations of the settlers' lifestyle, Living History events, and Appalachian music festivals and concerts. In recent years, the former roadbed of U.S. Highway 25E through the park was restored to an early 19th century wagon path; this was made possible with the 1996 completion of the Cumberland Gap Tunnel, which rerouted US 25E under the park.

The park contains the Kentucky-Virginia-Tennessee tri-state area, accessible via a short trail.

The Park covers 20,508 acres (83 km�), and saw just over 1 million visitors in 2005. The Cumberland Gap Visitor Center is located on U.S. Highway 25E just south of Middlesboro, Kentucky.
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