| … first looked west from Cumberland Gap into what is now Kentucky on this date in 1769. The Kentucky Historical Society celebrates June 7 as “Boone Day.”
Boone was not the first person through Cumberland Gap; he wasn’t even the first European-American. He was, however, instrumental in blazing a trail, which became known as the Wilderness Road. According to the National Park Service: |
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Immigration through the Gap began immediately, and by the end of the Revolutionary War some 12,000 persons had crossed into the new territory. By 1792 the population was over 100,000 and Kentucky was admitted to the Union.
During the 1790s traffic on the Wilderness Road increased. By 1800 almost 300,000 people had crossed the Gap going west. And each year as many head of livestock were driven east. As it had always been, the Gap was an important route of commerce and transportation.
You may be interested to know that this Kentucky household celebrates Boone Day the way God intended, by drinking whiskey and trapping a bear. The problem isn’t the whiskey drinking, which Mrs. A could handle even without my help, but the trapping of the bear. We bought the trap down in Pikeville last winter, and it was clearly marked as a “Bear Trap.” But so far, no bear. We’ve got three dogs and one Asian man so angry we’re afraid to go near him to let him loose. We’re thinking maybe we should have set it a little farther off the sidewalk.
One would think that in this litigious culture of ours bear traps would have instructions for chewing off one’s own leg printed right on them. In several languages.