During the winter of 1767–68, Daniel Boone and William Hill hunted and explored on the upper waters of the Big Sandy River and were forced to camp near this spot during the severe winter months beside a salt lick fed by a spring. With game plentiful, the two hunters could wait in their small shack for deer and other animals to come to the salt, conserving their limited ammunition and food, and the salt lick probably played an important part in saving their lives. Later, Henry Clay and John C. Breckinridge became the first owners of a large boundary of this land, but sold the area around the salt lick for a very small sum to men who recognized the commercial importance of the salt deposit and began exploiting it in 1795. From then until after the Civil War, salt was made and sold there, and local residents brought their families and camped for weeks until they had produced their year's supply. Shortly after the Civil War, the salt lick was abandoned, but the legend of Daniel Boone endured.