Daniel Boone National Forest is a vast protected landscape in Kentucky that began as Cumberland National Forest in 1937 and was renamed in 1966. Spanning rugged sections along the Cumberland Plateau and the Redbird Purchase, it is shaped by major river systems, reservoirs, heavy rainfall, and thousands of streams. The region figured in early exploration and westward expansion through the travels of La Salle, Thomas Walker, and Daniel Boone, whose route-making helped open Kentucky beyond the Appalachians. After intense logging and industrial exploitation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, federal land purchases created and expanded the forest, which now serves as both an ecological refuge and a major recreation destination.