Wilderness Road was an important pioneer road. In March 1775, the American pioneer Daniel Boone and a party of woodsmen began to cut a trail. Their route began at the Holston River in what is now Tennessee, passed through the Powell River Valley, crossed the Cumberland Mountains through Cumberland Gap, and ended in what is today central Kentucky. Boone and his followers built a settlement called Boonesborough at the trail’s end near present-day Lexington. Another branch of the Wilderness Road led to Harrodsburg.
The road was the only usable route through the mountains to Kentucky. It was a rocky trail threatened by unfriendly Indians. By 1800, about 200,000 settlers had traveled the road.
