The Pound Gap of Pine Mountain is on the Virginia/Kentucky border between

Jenkins, Kentucky Jenkins is a home rule-class city in Letcher County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 2,203 as of the 2010 census. History In autumn of 1911, the Consolidation Coal Company purchased the current location of Jenkins as part of a tr ...

and

Pound, Virginia Pound is a town in Wise County, Virginia, United States. The population was recorded as 1,037 in the 2010 United States Census. History The Pound area was explored in 1751 by Christopher Gist, and it is traditionally said to be the oldest sett ...

. It served as a passage for early settlers to cross into Kentucky from Virginia. Today,

U.S. Route 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 sinc ...

passes through the gap.

History

In 1750, early surveyors for the

Ohio Company The Ohio Company, formally known as the Ohio Company of Virginia, was a land speculation company organized for the settlement by Virginians of the Ohio Country (approximately the present U.S. state of Ohio) and to trade with the Native Ameri ...

, possibly including

Christopher Gist Christopher Gist (1706–1759) was an explorer, surveyor, and frontiersman active in Colonial America. He was one of the first white explorers of the Ohio Country (the present-day states of Ohio, eastern Indiana, western Pennsylvania, and nort ...

, passed through the gap. Many hunters used the gap to cross into Kentucky from Virginia for the next ten years.Pound Gap overview
Pound Gap High School. Retrieved on 2010-06-20 In 1774,

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 ...

used the gap to cross into Kentucky, along with Michael Stoner, to warn the land surveyors of a possible attack from the

Shawnee Indians 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 an ...

. Boone referred to Pound Gap as "Sounding Gap".Historical Sketches of Southwest Virginia - Online edition
Retrieved on 2010-06-20 Circa 1800, some the first pioneer families of eastern Kentucky came to Kentucky through Pound Gap. In Letcher County today are hundreds of the descendants of these pioneers. It was seven families who first came here around 1798: the Adamses, the Webbs, the Caudills, the Crafts, the Hammonds, the Sturgills, and the Collinses. The Hoggs, Maggards, Wrights, Fraziers, Fieldses, Bates, Halls, Bentleys, and Hamptons followed closely after the first settlement. In 1834, the General Assembly of Kentucky passed an act to improve the road (one of "Kentucky's Wilderness Traces") from Mount Sterling to Pound Gap to make travel to western Virginia more accessible. The route was widely used to drive livestock (horses, hogs and cattle) into Virginia and other southern markets and was shorter than other routes. The Mount Sterling - Pound Gap road was considered "the longest pre-Civil War state road" The route roughly follows modern day KY 11 from Mount Sterling to Clay City, then KY 15 from Clay City to Whitesburg, and finally US 119 from Whitesburg, along the Kentucky River, to its headwaters in Pound Gap. In 1861 the

Confederate States Army The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...

regiment under the command of Colonel John S. Williams took control of the gap. On March 16, 1862, 800 Union soldiers from the

42nd Ohio Infantry The 42nd Ohio Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Service The 42nd Ohio Infantry Regiment was organized at Camp Chase in Columbus, Ohio September through November 1861 and mustered in for th ...

, under the command of Brigadier General

James A. Garfield James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881) was the 20th president of the United States, serving from March 4, 1881 until his death six months latertwo months after he was shot by an assassin. A lawyer and Civil War gene ...

came from Piketon ( present day Pikeville)in the Battle of Pound Gap, forcing the 500 Confederate soldiers (under command of Major John Thompson) after the deadly battle to retreat. General Garfield was the youngest (Union) general of the war, and gained fame from the Battle of Pound Gap. On May 14, 1892, Dr M.B. Taylor, also known as "The Red Fox", and two confederates, Henan and Cal Fleming, ambushed Ira Mullins, a local moonshiner and his family. The ambush killed five out of seven people who were in the caravan at a rock near Pound Gap now called "Killing Rock". It was reported August 18th 1892 in the Richmond Dispatch that the grave of Ira Mullins was desecrated by an explosion similar to dynamite

Taylor was hanged at the Wise County Courthouse (Virginia), Wise County Courthouse on October 27, 1893 for the murders. The Red Fox Trail & Killing Rock is now a hiking trail in the

Jefferson National Forest The George Washington and Jefferson National Forests is an administrative entity combining two U.S. National Forests into one of the largest areas of public land in the Eastern United States. The forests cover of land in the Appalachian Mountai ...

. On November 30, 1927, Leonard Woods, a black coal miner and resident of

, was lynched on the Virginia-Kentucky border at Pound Gap. Woods had been jailed in Kentucky for the murder of 29-year-old Herschel Deaton of

Coeburn, Virginia Coeburn is a town in Wise County, Virginia, United States, along the Guest River. The population was 2,139 at the 2010 census. History The Town of Coeburn was originally named Guest Station after explorer and surveyor Christopher Gist. Gist wr ...

, following an altercation on November 27. On the night of the lynching, a crowd estimated between 400-500 surrounded the Kentucky jail Woods was held in and demanded he be released to their custody. The crowd then transported Woods to a wooden structure located in Pound Gap adjacent to the recently constructed

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 sinc ...

highway. At this time the mob, estimated at 1,500, oversaw the hanging of Woods, followed by the firing of over 500 shots at his body, according to a local reporter. Both Virginia and Kentucky authorities claimed they were not responsible for investigating the crime, and no one was prosecuted for the death of Leonard Woods.

Geological features

The Pound Gap mountain pass is known as a

wind gap A wind gap (or air gap) is a gap through which a waterway once flowed that is now dry as a result of stream capture. A water gap is a similar feature, but one in which a waterway still flows. Water gaps and wind gaps often provide routes which ...

, as streams no longer flow through it. During the construction of the new section of US 23 in 1998, the "Pine Mountain Pound Gap Thrust Fault" was exposed. "The collision of the North American continent with Africa and Europe more than 275 million years ago formed the Appalachian Mountains and the thrust fault at Pound Gap". Geologists consider the exposed rock to be "one of the most remarkable exposures of rock in the entire eastern United States". On September 26, 1998, Pound Gap was declared Kentucky's first Distinguished Geologic Site by the Kentucky Society of Professional Geologists.KSPG Awards
Retrieved on 2010-06-22

References

External links

Information on Pound Gap Geological Section

Southwest Virginia Early Routes

Geology of the Pound Gap Roadcut, Letcher County, Kentucky
(Guidebook for 1998 Annual Field Conference of the Kentucky Society of Professional Geologists), Coordinated by D.R. Chesnut Jr. 18.7 MB {{Authority control Landforms of Letcher County, Kentucky Landforms of Wise County, Virginia Valleys of Kentucky Wind gaps of Virginia Wind gaps of the United States

History

Geological features

See also

References

External links