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The Cumberland Gap is a Mountain pass in the eastern United States through the long ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, within the Appalachian Mountains and near the tripoint of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. At an elevation of above sea level, it is famous in American colonial history for its role as a key passageway through the lower central Appalachians.
Long used by Native American nations, the Cumberland Gap was brought to the attention of settlers in 1750 by Thomas Walker, a Virginia physician and explorer. The path was used by a team of frontiersmen led by Daniel Boone, making it accessible to pioneers who used it to journey into the western frontiers of Kentucky and Tennessee. An important part of the Wilderness Road, it is now part of the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.
The V-shaped gap serves as a gateway to the west. The base of the gap is about above the valley floor, even though the north side of the pass was lowered during the construction of Old U.S. Route 25E. To the south, the ridge rises above the pass, while to the north the Pinnacle Overlook towers above at an elevation of .
Centrally located in the eastern United States, the region around Cumberland Gap experiences all four seasons. The summers are typically sunny, warm, and humid with average high temperatures in the mid to upper 80s °F (29-32 °C). In the winter months, January through March, temperatures range in the 30s to 40s °F (0s °C) and are generally mild with rain and few periods of snow.
The nearest cities are Middlesboro, Kentucky and Harrogate, Tennessee. The nearby town of Cumberland Gap, Tennessee is named after the gap.
The discovery of the Middlesboro impact structure has proposed new details in the formation of Cumberland Gap. Less than 300 million years ago a meteorite, "approximately the size of a football field", struck the earth, creating the Middlesboro Crater. One of three in the state, it is a diameter meteorite impact crater with the city of Middlesboro, Kentucky built entirely inside it. Detailed mapping by geologists in the 1960s led many to interpret the geological features of the area to be the site of an ancient impact. In 1966 Robert Dietz discovered in nearby sandstone, proving recent speculation. Shatter cones, a rock-shattering pattern naturally formed only during , are found in abundance in the area. The presence of shatter cones found also helped confirm the origin of the impact. In September 2003, the site was designated a Distinguished Geologic Site by the Kentucky Society of Professional Geologists.
Without the Rocky Face Fault, it would have been difficult for pack-horses to navigate this gap and the gap in Pine Mountain near Pineville, and it would be improbable that wagon roads would have been constructed at an early date. Middlesboro is the only place in the world where coal is mined inside an astrobleme. Special mining techniques must be used in the complicated strata of this crater.Milam & Kuehn, 36
The gap was named for Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, son of King George II of Great Britain, 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 1769 Joseph Martin built a fort nearby at present-day Rose Hill, Virginia, on behalf of Walker's land claimants. But Martin and his men were chased out of the area by Native Americans, and Martin did not return until 1775.
In 1775 Daniel Boone, hired by the Transylvania Company, arrived in the region leading a company of men to widen the path through the gap to make settlement of Kentucky and Tennessee easier. On his arrival, Boone discovered that Martin had already arrived in Powell Valley, where Martin and his men were clearing land for their own settlement – the westernmost settlement in English colonial America at the time. By the 1790s, the trail that Boone and his men built had been widened to accommodate wagon traffic and became known as the Wilderness Road.
Several American Civil War engagements occurred in and around the Cumberland Gap and are known as the Battle of the Cumberland Gap. In June 1862, Union Army General George W. Morgan captured the gap for the Union. In September of that year, Confederate States Army forces under Edmund Kirby Smith occupied the gap during General Braxton Bragg's Kentucky Invasion. The following year, in a bloodless engagement in September 1863, Union Army troops under General Ambrose Burnside forced the surrender of 2,300 Confederates defending the gap, gaining Union control of the gap for the remainder of the war.
It is estimated that between 200,000 and 300,000 European-American settlers passed through the gap on their way into Kentucky and the Ohio River before 1810. Today 18,000 cars pass beneath the site daily, and 1.2 million people visit the park on the site annually. The park features many hiking trails.
U.S. Route 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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