Wilderness Road, 1780-1810, Cumberland Gap National Historical
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•• • • • • Restoration of Historic Features • Cumberland Gap National Historical Park • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Pl.EtSE RETU~ TO: • TECtNCAL INFORMATIONOEHJ!R OEtMR SERVICE CSfT'ER • :noNAL PARK SEfMCE • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Restoration of Historic Features • Cumberland Gap National Historical Park • • • Research methodology for the • "Rediscovery" of historically significant • resouces: Procedures developed to • derermine ther original topography of the • historic saddle of Cumberland Gap and • identify the vertical and horizontal • alignment of the historic road. • • Prepared by Harland D. Unrau, Cultural Resource Specialist, • Denver Service Center, Planning and Site Design; Planning • Based on personal interviews with, and information provided by, • Michael F. Hart, former Visual Information Specialist (retired), • National Park Service, Denver Service Center • • • • • • September 2002 • National Park Service • U.S. Department of the Interior • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • ••· • • • • • • • • • • Contents • Introduction ......... .iii List of Illustrations • Historic Context.. ........3 SADDLE AREA ....._ ..... 61 Hart's Procedure Simplified .......... 6 • Rediscovered Locations .......... 9 View northwest Toward the Saddle .......... 63 ,.• Purpose I Significance of the Study.......... 4 Saddle Area Viewing South .......... 65 WILDERNESS ROAD INDEX......... 11 View West to the Saddle .......... 66 (. The Cumberland Gap-Coming Full Circle ..........5 View North from Cumberland Gap.......... 12 Saddle Area Viewing South .......... 67 View Southeast from Middlesboro, Kentucky.......... 13 Saddle Area Viewing South .......... 68 ,.• Saddle Rehabilitation .......... 14 View South to the Saddle .......... 69 WILDERNESS ROAD INDEX.......... 11 Wilderness Road Alignments Through the Saddle View South to the Saddle ..........70 of the Gap .......... 15 Final Grading Plan of Historic Tography.......... 73 • Methodology.......... 19 • Wilderness Road Existing Conditions .......... 16 View Northwest Toward the Saddle ..........74 View South to the Saddle .......... 75 • Cumberland Gap .......... 20 Historic Remnant Locations .......... 17 CADD DIGITAL TERRAIN MODELS - ,.• Wilderness Road - Virginia I Tennessee Side ......... 27 PRIMARY HISTORIC REFERENCES ..........37 1833 Survey 1. •••••••• .J9 FINAL GRADING PLAN.......... 77 View Northwest at the Saddle ..........78 • Warrior's Path I Lower Virginia Road .......... 28 1862 map of Area 2 .......... 40 1903 map of Saddle 3 ........... 41 View Southeast at the Saddle .......... 79 • Kentucky Utilities Corp. 4 .......... 42 View Northeast at the Saddle .......... 80 Cudjo Cavern ......... 29 • View Northwest Toward the Saddle 5.......... 43 View Northwest at the Saddle .......... 81 • Wilderness Road - Kentucky Side ........30 Saddle Area Viewing South 6 .......... 44 • View Northwest Toward the Saddle 7........... 45 RIDGE AREA .......... 83 1111 Final Grading Plan ......... 85 Cumberland Gap ..........34 Saddle Area Viewing South 8.......... 46 • View South to the Saddle 9 .......... 47 Ridge I Wilderness Road .......... 86 10.......... I • Source Materials .........35 Saddle Area Viewing West 48 Ridge Wilderness Road ........... 88 • Indian Rock 11 ...........48 Wilderness Road's Descent into Kentucky.......... 88 89 i. & 1939 Aerial Photograph of the Area 12 ........... 49 Wilderness Road's Descent into Kentucky......... Letter from Vaugh Melton Consulting Engineers ..........36 • CAVERN AREA ..........51 • PRIMARY HISTORIC REFERENCES ........ 37 Cavern Area I Geologic Feature Over Gap • Creek. ......... 53 • CAVERN AREA .......... 51 Cavern Area/ Geologic Feature Over Gap Geological Explanation of Cudjo Cavern .......... 59 Creek. ......... 54 • Original Entrance to Cudjo Cavern ..........55 • SADDLE AREA .......... 61 Comparison of Rock Formations ...........56 • Cavern Area and Geological Features ..........57 • CADD DIGITAL TERRAIN MODELS .......... 77 • RIDGE AREA.......... 83 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Introduction .,• Cumberland Gap National Historical Park (CUGA) In 1994, an amendment to the National Register nomi was established on June 11, 1940, to set apart as a pub nation form for the historic district clarified the inclu lic park for the benefit and inspiration of the public, sion of the Wilderness Road as a contributing • certain lands, structures, and other property, includ resource, and provided a more detailed description of • ing Cumberland Gap - a natural gap, or low point, road segments in the park that have a high degree of ·• on Cumberland Mountain - and a segment of the integrity. The amendment also designated the corri historic Wilderness Road which crosses Cumberland dor of US 25E from its junction with Route 58 (in • Mountain through the Gap. The Gap, along with the Virginia) to Indian Rock beyond the saddle of the Gap • Wilderness Road that passes through it, is nationally (in Kentucky) as a contributing resource, since it fol • significant, because it was the first feasible and sus lows the general route of the historic road. • tained two-way passage through the Appalachian • Mountain barrier used during the early years of Historical documentation regarding the significance American westward expansion. Today, CUGA com and location of the Gap and the Wilderness Road may • prises more than 20,000 acres of land in the states of be found in U.S. Department of the Interior, National ,.• Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee that are adminis Park Service, Location of the Wilderness Road at tered by the National Park Service (NPS). Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, by Jere L. Krakow, National Park Service, August 1987, and • Robert L. Kincaid, The Wilderness Road (6th ed., Cumberland Gap National Historical Park was listed • in the National Register of Historic Places on October Harrogate, Tennessee, Lincoln Memorial University, • 15, 1966. On May 28, 1980, the Cumberland Gap 1996). • Historic District was listed in the National Register . • • • ! • • :e• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Historic Context .,• The Wilderness Road served as the principal route from the ments became a constant in order to facilitate settlers and Heavy impacts to the topography of the Gap area have been eastern settlements on the Atlantic seaboard to the interior commercial traffic. The route became the most direct and identified - the alignment of US 25E, utility lines, a com lands drained by the Ohio River beyond the Appalachian most easily traveled from the lower Ohio Valley to mercial store, a water reservoir, the modern community of ,.• mountain barrier. Prior to heavy commercial and settler Philadelphia until the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 and Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, and the Seaboard System traffic on the road between 1780 and 1810, the route was pri roads across the mid-Atlantic states during that same Railroad. Road construction, mainly during the 20th centu marily used by migrating herds of bison and by several decade. ry, led to major modifications in the topography of the Gap, • tribes of American Indians traveling between their villages most noticeably in the saddle of the Gap where large ,.• and hunting grounds. Commercial use, especially by live After the heyday of settler usage (about 1810), east-west traf amounts of quarrying and leveling occurred to make the stock drovers, began around the turn of the 19th century. fic over the Wilderness Road tended to be more commercial grade of modern roadways less steep and to widen the traf in orientation, involving primarily livestock droving from fic lanes for the convenience and safety of vehicular traffic. • The network of traces laid down by bison formed the basis Kentucky into the southeastern states. During the Civil It is estimated that about 215,000 cubic yards of earth have ,.• of trails used by American Indians, and in time, frontiers War, the Gap became a strategic location for both Union been removed from the Gap as a result of various road con men and settlers. Foremost among Indian routes in the and Confederate troops, and numerous defensive positions struction projects. Elsewhere road cuts and fills (present eastern United States was the "Warriors' Path;' which and an attendant military road network modified the land and former), culverts, rock faces, and embankments have • looped southward through the Gap connecting the Ohio scape. impacted the historic landscape. • River Valley and that of the Shenandoah and Potomac . Branches of the road also continued southeast to the During the 20th century, modern road building techniques Two management objectives for the national historical park • Cherokee and Creek settlements. The path laid down by left a substantial imprint on the theCumberland Gap area. are to rest.ore and preserve as closely as possible the appear • animals and early peoples was eventually adapted by set A macadamized surface road, designated the Object Lesson ance of Cumberland Gap that existed at the turn of the 18th • tlers, land speculators, and opportunists from the colonies Road, replaced the old road in 1908. Built by the Bureau of century, and to foster public understanding and apprecia on the eastern seaboard. Public Roads, the 2-1/z mile roadway demonstrated the effi tion of the park's historical and natural significance through • cacy of modern technology and all-weather surface for various interpretive programs and facilities. The intent is to I • Early Anglo-American