Moccasin Gap, also known as Big Moccasin Gap, is a pass in

Clinch Mountain Clinch Mountain is a mountain ridge in the U.S. states of Tennessee and Virginia, lying in the ridge-and-valley section of the Appalachian Mountains. From its southern terminus at Kitts Point, which lies at the intersection of Knox, Union and Gr ...

, a long ridge within the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

, at Gate City,

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. This gap has a long history as a passageway through the mountain. It was used by the

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...

and

Shawnee The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...

, and was the first gap through which the

Daniel Boone Daniel Boone (September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the we ...

Wilderness Road The Wilderness Road was one of two principal routes used by colonial and early national era settlers to reach Kentucky from the East. Although this road goes through the Cumberland Gap into southern Kentucky and northern Tennessee, the other (mo ...

passed on its way to the better-known

Cumberland Gap The Cumberland Gap is a pass through the long ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, within the Appalachian Mountains, near the junction of the U.S. states of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. It is famous in American colonial history for its rol ...

and

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

. Today it serves as a primary commercial route for industry, retail, and tourism businesses.

Geography

Moccasin Gap is the more dramatic of only two true, natural gaps in the Clinch Mountain ridge. It is located in the present day state of Virginia, in Scott County. It lies between two cities; Weber City is built into the south side of the gap and Gate City is to the northwest. The area surrounding Moccasin Gap is

sedimentary Sedimentary rocks are types of rock (geology), rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic matter, organic particles at Earth#Surface, Earth's surface, followed by cementation (geology), cementation. Sedimentati ...

which is formed by the compaction of particles of gravel, sand, silt, mud, and carbonate minerals from the repetitive rise and fall of shallow seas, dating to the

Cambrian The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized C with bar, Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million ...

or Pennsylvanian period. Moccasin Gap is a

water gap A water gap is a gap that flowing water has carved through a mountain range or mountain ridge and that still carries water today. Such gaps that no longer carry water currents are called wind gaps. Water gaps and wind gaps often offer a prac ...

that is currently traversed by a channel of water, Big Moccasin Creek which is a tributary to the

North Fork Holston River The Holston River is a river that flows from Kingsport, Tennessee, to Knoxville, Tennessee. Along with its three major forks (North Fork, Middle Fork and South Fork), it comprises a major river system that drains much of northeastern Tennessee, ...

. The climate in Scott County is classified as

continental Continental may refer to: Places * Continent, the major landmasses of Earth * Continental, Arizona, a small community in Pima County, Arizona, US * Continental, Ohio, a small town in Putnam County, US Arts and entertainment * ''Continental'' ( ...

or warm-to-temperate consisting of four seasons. Average temperatures reach in the summer months and drop to in the wintertime. The greatest mean of rainfall is also during these times while the least precipitation occurs in the fall.

History

The gap served as a vital route through the mountains for the Cherokee and Shawnee to claimed hunting grounds south of the

Clinch River The Clinch River is a river that flows southwest for more than through the Great Appalachian Valley in the U.S. states of Virginia and Tennessee, gathering various tributaries, including the Powell River, before joining the Tennessee River in Ki ...

. Later it would also be utilized as an attacking point against settlers in the valleys, a strategy also adopted by military soldiers during both the

Revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective, to refer to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor. ...

and

Civil Civil may refer to: *Civic virtue, or civility *Civil action, or lawsuit * Civil affairs *Civil and political rights *Civil disobedience *Civil engineering *Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism *Civilian, someone not a membe ...

wars. In 1775, Daniel Boone and thirty ax-men built the Indian path into a road, part of the Wilderness Road between the Great Valley of Virginia and the

Alleghenies The Allegheny Mountain Range (; also spelled Alleghany or Allegany), informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less devel ...

, on his quest to the

Kentucky River The Kentucky River is a tributary of the Ohio River, long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed June 13, 2011 in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. Commonwealth of Kentuc ...

. This section of the Wilderness Road extended north from the Long Island of the Holston River in

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

towards the well-known

at the boundary of

, and

. The establishment of the Wilderness Road through the gap also brought pioneer settlers and tradesmen looking for passage to Kentucky and west. Scott County and the surrounding area praise the gap for its development as it became a significant route in commercial trade to the Ohio River Valley. Moccasin gap is a level gap which made construction of the railway seamless. In 1886 the Southern Railway began traversing the gap to connect the Appalachia and Holston Valley divisions. In 2006 the

Virginia Department of Transportation The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is the agency of the state government responsible for transportation in the state of Virginia in the United States. VDOT is headquartered at the Virginia Department of Highways Building in downtown ...

began construction to travel routes passing through the gap which included widening of

US 23 } U.S. Route 23 or U.S. Highway 23 (US 23) is a major north–south U.S. Highway between Jacksonville, Florida, and Mackinaw City, Michigan. It is an original 1926 route which originally reached only as far south as Portsmouth, Ohio, and has since ...

and involved excavating the gap. This phase (1) of the project was completed in July 2008. Phase 2 and 3 are currently still in progress and awaiting further funding. The plan to connect Route 72 to the bypass will remove a significant portion of the mountain in the gap, altering its natural profile.

References

{{Gaps of the Appalachian Mountains Water gaps of Virginia Landforms of Scott County, Virginia Transportation in Scott County, Virginia

Geography

History

See also

References