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Pound Gap

The Pound Gap was important to the settlement of America's western frontier. The historic importance of Pound Gap has been overshadowed by the Cumberland Gap, and the Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road. However, Pound Gap was an important path for the Kentucky people and the Wilderness Road Trail that included Castle's Woods (Castlewood) and the Indian Creek section of Pound. Settlers that settled in Eastern Kentucky came to Kentucky by the way of Virginia's Pound Gap and the area known as "the Pound".

Historical Notes about Pound Gap

Early explorer Christopher Gist was believed by many to have discovered the passage through the mountains between Virginia and Kentucky that is now known as Pound Gap. More recent assessments of his journals make this supposition questionable.  However, surveyors for the Ohio Company may have passed through in this time period.  Undoubtedly a number of Hunters used this pass in the 1750s and 1760s.

Daniel Boone entered Kentucky through the Pound Gap

Daniel Boone and Michael Steiner journeyed through the Gap to warn surveyors about the Indians in Virginia.

Members of the first group of settlers in what is now Letcher County, Kentucky, saw the Kentucky region from the Gap.

Kentucky legislatures authorized funding for the survey and construction of a turnpike that is now the KY to Pound Gap Road.

In November of 1861, Confederates under the command of Colonel John Williams took control of the Gap.

Union Soldiers under the command of Brigadier General James A. Garfield, marched out of Pikeville and forced Confederates to leave the Gap.

At the area known as the Killing Rocks, Red Fox Taylor and his men ambushed Ira Mullins' family and some of their neighbors.  

Dr. Taylor was named the "Red Fox" by the author John Fox, Jr. On October 27, the Union Soldiers hanged Red Fox at Wise.

The Kentucky Society of Professional Geologists, designated the Pound Gap road cut on U.S. Hwy. 23 as a "Distinguished Geological Site".