Warriors' Path

Before trucks and cars in the 1900s, before steam locomotives in the 1800s, and before long-hunters' packhorses in the 1700s, long-distance traffic crossed Cumberland Gap on foot in both directions along a wide Indian game trail that had been used for centuries to ascend this important pass. The first Englishman known to have walked over Cumberland Gap was backwoods trader Gabriel Arthur, a 1674 captive of the Shawnee. Dr. Thomas Walker in 1750 and Daniel Boone in 1769 both explored Kentucky by following the already existing Warriors' Path north. One hundred miles south in the foothills of the Great Smokies lay the principal towns of the Cherokee, while one hundred-fifty miles north, where the Scioto River joins the Ohio, lay the principal towns of the Shawnee. Bitter enemies over many generations, the two tribes regularly attacked each other and traveled one of the best-known long-range trails crossing the Appalachians to reach each other's home ground. The Shawnee called the trail Athiamiowee, and English-speakers in the 1750s began calling it the Warriors' Path.

Virginia · United States