Question: When did the first explorers travel through Pound Gap between Jenkins, KY and Pound, Va.?

Answer: This answer comes from the Kentucky Encyclopedia:
From 1750 onward the Cumberland Plateau was explored and settled by pioneers traveling down the Ohio River from the east. Most Kentuckians now living in the Cumberland Plateau area, however, are descendants of those who entered through the broad, 1,600-foot-high saddle of the Cumberland Gap , or through one of several narrower gaps, such as Pound Gap or the gap at the Breaks of the Sandy along the Russell Fork. For many years residents of the area were almost exclusively subsistence farmers, lumber workers, or coal miners. The Cumberland Plateau has become more accessible and less isolated with recent improvements in transportation, including the Mountain Parkway, completed in 1958; I-64 west from Ashland, completed in 1973; the Daniel Boone Parkway (1974); and the widening of U.S. 23 to four lanes in the 1980s.

Source: Kentucky Encyclopedia

Linda Niemi

Filed under: Kentucky history