Cumberland Gap
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- "Cumberland Gap" is also the informal name for a section of the A74 road in England; the name of a song by skiffle artist Lonnie Donegan; and the name of an old-time fiddle tune with many variants.
The Cumberland Gap is a pass across the Cumberland Mountains region of the Appalachian Mountains, also known as the Cumberland Water Gap. The gap is famous in American history for its role as the chief passageway through the central Appalachians. As the main east-west gap in the mountains, it was an important part of the Wilderness Road, an old Indian path which Daniel Boone widened with 35 axmen, thus opening up the western frontiers of Kentucky and Tennessee for pioneer settlement.
Cumberland Gap is located just north of the spot where the current-day states of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia meet. The pass elevation is 1600 feet (488 meters). The nearby town of Cumberland Gap, Tennessee takes its name from the pass.
The Gap was formed by an ancient creek, flowing southward, which cut through the land being pushed up to form the mountains. As the land rose even more, the creek reversed direction flowing into the Cumberland River to the north. The gap was used by Native Americans and migrating animal herds.
The gap was named for Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, who had many places named for him in the American colonies after the Battle of Culloden. The explorer Thomas Walker gave the name to the Cumberland River in 1750, and the name soon spread to many other features in the region, such as the Cumberland Gap.
In 1775, Daniel Boone, hired by the Transylvania Company led a company of men to widen the path through the gap to make settlement of Kentucky and Tennessee easier. The trail was widened in the 1790s to accommodate wagon traffic.
It is estimated that between 200,000 and 300,000 immigrants passed through the gap on their way into Kentucky and the Ohio Valley before 1810.
U.S. Highway 25E passed overland through the gap before the completion of the Cumberland Gap Tunnel in 1996. The original trail was then restored.
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[edit] Geological Features
The 12-mile long Cumberland Gap consists of four geologic features: the Yellow Creek valley, the natural gap in the Cumberland Mountain ridge, the eroded gap in the Pine Mountain, and Middlesboro crater, the 3-mile diameter impact crater in which Middlesboro, Kentucky is located. Shatter cones, a type of rock fragment naturally found only during meteor impact events, were found in abundance. Without this crater, it would have been difficult for packhorses to navigate this gap and improbable for wagon roads to be constructed at an early date. Middlesboro is the only place in the world where coal is mined inside a meteor crater. In September 2003 itwas designated by the Kentucky Society of Professional Geologists as a Distinguished Geologic Site.
Confirmation of the meteor crater came in 1966 when Robert Diaz discovered shatter cones inside sandstones specimens that led to the identification of shocked quartz. Special mining techniques must be used in the complicated strata of this crater. It is thought that similar techniques will be used in future mining of planets (Mars), satellites (Moon) and asteroids where craters occur in large numbers. (Milam & Kuehn, 36).
[edit] References in Popular Culture
- The Gap features in the song "Mighty Joe Moon" on the album of the same name by American band Grant Lee Buffalo. As well as in the song "Wagon Wheel " by the southern folk band Old Crow Medicine Show.
[edit] References
- Kortenkamp, Steve (2004) Impact at Cumberland Gap Where Natural and National History Collide . Tucson, AZ. . PSI Newsletter . http://www.psi.edu/newsletter/summer04/Summer04.
- Kuehn, Kenneth, Milam, Keith (2003) Field Guide to the Middlesboro Impact Structure and Beyond . Lexington, KY. . Field Conference of Kentucky Society of Professional Geologists . http://www.kspg.org/pdf/03fieldguide.pdf
