Wilderness Road State Park is a state park located in southwestern

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 ...

, near

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 r ...

and Ewing, VA. It consists of about around the former Wilderness Road. Within it stand the Karlan Mansion and a replica of the original Martin's Station fort.

Trails

Historical significance

Wilderness Road

Wilderness Road was built by

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 ...

in 1775. It was the first road to connect the interior of the country with the populated coastline, and allowed about 300,000 people to settle there after 25 years of use. Much of the original road's path is used by modern roads, but some areas, such as the area inside the park, have been preserved.

Martin's Station

Martin's Station was a frontier fort originally located at nearby Rose Hill, Virginia. The station, consisting of several fortified cabins, was the only station between the start of the Wilderness Road at the blockhouse in Virginia and Crab Orchard on the edge of the

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 ...

settlement – a distance of some 200 miles. "Throughout the period of the Wilderness Road's great activity it remained the important intermediate station," according to historian William Allen Pusey. The fort has been reconstructed today within the park. It is named for the early explorer of the region and namesake of

Martinsville, Virginia Martinsville is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 13,485. A community of both Southside and Southwest Virginia, it is the county seat of Henry County, althou ...

Brigadier General Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed ...

Joseph Martin.

Karlan Mansion

This mansion was built on the farm of Robert M. Ely around 1870, and today it can be rented out for special events. The 12-room mansion was to remain named "Karlan" in honor of the previous owners, Karl and Ann Harris. However, locals still refer to the mansion as "Elydale", in honor of Robert McPherson Ely, who named the house "Elydale" when it was built in 1878. Two years after building the house, Robert Ely went swimming and caught typhoid fever, and died in 1880. His widow remarried to Thomas A. Taylor in 1885, and when a railroad stop was placed nearby, a mapping error called this " Caylor, Virginia".Tennis, Joe
Along Virginia's Route 58: True Tales from Beach to Bluegrass
2015. Pages 238-239.

External links

References

{{authority control State parks of Virginia Parks in Lee County, Virginia Protected areas established in 1993 1993 establishments in Virginia