Warriors' Path

Warriors' Path. Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. , Before trucks and cars in the 1900s, before steam locomotives in the 1800s, before long-hunters' packhorses in the 1700s, there was long-distance traffic crossing the Gap , on foot , going both north and south. No one knows how many centuries Indians used a wide game trail, similar to the one you see before you, to ascend this important pass., The first Englishman known to have walked over Cumberland Gap was backwoods trader Gabriel Arthur, a 1674 captive of the Shawnee. Both Dr. Thomas Walker (1750) and Daniel Boone (1769) explored Kentucky by following the already existing Warriors' Path north., Athiamiowee , One hundred miles to the south in the foothills of the Great Smokies lay the principal towns of the Cherokee. One hundred-fifty miles to the north, where the Scioto River joins the Ohio, lay the principal towns of the Shawnee. Bitter enemies over many generations, these two tribes regularly attacked each other., To reach the enemies' home ground, both Cherokee and Shawnee traveled one of the best-known long-range trails crossing the Appalachians. Shawnee called the trail Athiamiowee. English-speakers in the 1750s began calling it the Warriors' Path.