Into the Gap

On the road:  Yesterday I drove to Middlesboro, KY, to visit Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.  This 26-mile-long, 24,000-acre reserve straddles the Cumberland Mountains and includes the point where Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia meet.  Most importantly it shelters the Cumberland Gap, a natural passage through the Appalachian Mountains, of which the Cumberlands are a part.

The park is just five minutes from Middlesboro.

Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia come together
in Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.

The Gap is the primary reason for the park, which was established in 1940.  This break in the mountains was well known to Native Americans and migratory wildlife.  Buffalo, deer and other animals used it to move to and from summer and winter feeding grounds, and Native American hunters exploited the food supply.  Then, in 1750, European settlers to the east "discovered" the Gap, which made trans-Appalachian lands more readily accessible.  From 1775-1810 an estimated 300,000 settlers traveled through the Cumberland Gap to seek their fortune on the frontier, ultimately displacing the region's Indian population.

You can appreciate the importance of the Gap from atop the Pinnacle, a mountain peak accessed by a steeply winding 4-mile road from the park's Visitor Center.  Driving this two-lane route is an adventure in itself!  At road's end the view — from 1330 feet above the surrounding hills and valleys — is breathtaking and instructive.

My GPS unit's map of Pinnacle View Rd. hardly does
justice to the tight switchbacks and steep grade.

The viewing platform is a short walk from the car park.
An accessible path is a recent and helpful addition.

This stone platform replaced a rickety wooden structure
used for decades by legions of gutsy (or foolhardy) tourists.

The Pinnacle overlook sits at 1,440 feet above sea level.  Commanding a greater than 180 degree view, you can see (left to right) portions of Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, with the Gap itself in the near right-hand foreground.

For many years Highway 25E bisected the federal landholding near the Gap.  A tunnel now carries traffic under the park.  Park Service personnel are restoring the abandoned roadway to a condition similar to that which settlers would have experienced on the Wilderness Trail.  This restoration work, including reforestation with native tree stock, will take many decades.  The Trail passes through some 14,000 acres (nearly 60% of the park's land) which is managed as wilderness.

Powell's Valley, part of Virginia, was the settlers'
promised land beyond the Appalachian barrier.

The town of Cumberland Gap sits at Pinnacle's base.

From the viewing aerie you can see the Tri-State area, that point where the three states meet on a mountain ridge below.  Have you seen the History Channel's entertaining program entitled How The States Got Their Shapes?  If so, you won't be surprised to learn that this boundary was hotly disputed for decades.  A Solomonic resolution ended the controversy in 1803 (see map photo above).  We Americans love to fight over land, which is odd, because we have so much of it.  An example closer to home is the fabled Toledo War of 1835-36 between Michigan and Ohio.  Imagine fighting over Toledo!  (I should note in passing that History Channel's program is hosted by Brian Unger, who grew up in Granville, OH, where I attended college.)

Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky meet on this mountain
ridge.  The Gap is the valley in the foreground.

Control of Cumberland Gap was contested during the Civil War.  The Confederacy wanted to keep the Union from cutting off Tennessee's resources, and for that purpose built earthwork forts and gun emplacements on the surrounding hills.  A few reminders of this sad era are visible among the spring-flowering rhododendron and dogwood.

This gun, halfway down Pinnacle View Rd., sits at a
Civil War artillery emplacement.

Dogwoods bloom at the Visitor Center.

Today I head east to find my brother and his wife at Roanoke. •••