GATEWAY TO THE WEST

By J. M. Moseley

Part Five

Students and Writers - Local Interests

After the close of the Civil War, Sam C. Jones built a store and saloon under the eastern end of the bridge over Cumberland Gap. He was from Lee Co., and had been a trader and stock drover and knew many people all along the old Wilderness Trail. His business thrived. He was a jolly 275 pounder. He kept his charge accounts on the rude wall of his makeshift building. In 1870 he was visited by Harry Finn, an artist, and Felix Gregory De Fontaine, a writer. Sketches were made of Jones’ place with an ox wagon passing, and of the old site of the mill and foundry with the great waterwheel that operated a 500 lb. hammer. The pictures were for use in the book, “Picturesque America,” edited by William Cullen Bryant. De Fontaine as writing the text.

Cumberland Gap and vicinity held peculiar interests for the students of paleontology, the rock formations, caves, ores, fossils, etc. A noted scientist from Harvard University, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, came there in the summer of 1875, with a class of geology students from Harvard. They spent the summer in study of the fauna and flora as well as the geology of the remarkable locality. With them were Lucian Carr, David Star Jordan, A. R. Crandell, John R. Procter, and many other visitors and students. Two interesting mineral prospects were the coal on the north side and iron on the south.

Another interesting visitor to the locality was James Lane Allen, in 1885, from Lexington, KY. He was a teacher-writer looking for the material among the mountains about which to write. He was interested in the old Wilderness Road, and the mountain people in the isolated country. He was struck by the wide contrast between the rapidly developing Bluegrass region and the rugged and backward mountain section.

At Pineville he found the crude mountain folk all divided and up in arms and tense with excitement in the midst of a dangerous feud over a shooting scrape. He was glad to get away as quickly as possible. However, he was thrilled at the sight of the famous Cumberland Gap, and spent the night beneath the Pinnacle and contemplated the material for his story. “Through Cumberland Gap on Horseback,” published in Harpers Magazine, June, 1886. In his meditations he wrote:

As we stood in the passway, amid the deepening shadows of the twilight and the solemn repose of the mighty landscape, the Gap seemed to be crowded with two invisible and countless pageants of human life, the one passing in, the other passing out; and the air grew thick with ghostly utterances - primeval sounds, undistinguishable and strange, of creatures nameless and never seen by man; the wild rush and whoops of retreating and pursuing tribes; the slow steps of watchful pioneers; the wail of dying children and the songs of homeless women; the muffled tread of routed and broken armies - all the sounds of surprise and delight, victory and defeat, hunger and pain and worriness and despair, that the human heart can utter. Here passed the first of all the white race who led the way into the valley of the Cumberland; here passed that small band of fearless men who gave the Gap its name; here passed the “Long Hunters”; here rushed the armies of the Civil War; here has passed the wave of westerly emigration, whose force has spent itself only on the Pacific slopes; and here in the long future must flow backward and forward wealth beyond the dream of avarice.

A. A. Arthur

In 1886, twenty-one years after the close of the Civil War, Alexander Alan Arthur appeared at Cumberland Gap, while old guns, shells and bullets still lay about the place. Arthur was destined to lead in a great change. He was prospecting for a rail route to connect the coal regions to the north with East Tennessee and the South.

He interested some friends in the promising region, and brought them with him on a second trip. On the night of August 31, 1886, they were camping in the Gap. That night the Charleston earthquake occurred. It was centered 400 miles away, but it shook down many huge boulders in the cave near them, ain in other caves among the mountains.

Arthur and his associates studied the resources, the timber, coal and iron, and took option on thousands of acres of the land. Then Arthur went to England and induced investors to furnish capital for the development of the region. Eventually options on some 80,000 acres were taken, in Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia.

Both English and local investors were induced to put money into the enterprise. The L & N Railroad was induced to extend a branch road from Pineville into the Yellow Creek community. Soon there were several roads turning their attention in the direction of the Gap. It was not long until a railroad was in progress from Knoxville toward the booming locality. Several other railroad companies were contemplating branch lines to the coal section.

Arthur’s dream of boom development was taking hold of the people. A fifty room hotel was erected near Cumberland Gap. Many visitors poured in from the north and the south and from England. Buggies, stage coaches, hacks and wagons came and went hourly over the rough roads. Noted passengers as well as writers visited the place and spread the news.

Middlesboro was planned and laid out, and soon the city was building and expanding, while crews were digging a tunnel from both sides of the mountain. Fern Lake was constructed for a water supply.

On the night of August 8, 1889, the L & N Tunnel was cut through after 18 months of drilling from each side of the Mountain. The seven-eights of a mile of tunnel had been difficult, and when the two crews met and broke through the center, there was a great celebration. Native whites, Negroes and Italians were used on the project, and all celebrated together.

In the time of this work, the Wilderness Road had been swallowed up in the Yellow Creek section by a town of 5,000 people. A. A. Arthur, (spent his last days in Middlesboro, and died there March 4, 1912, and was buried in the city cemetery in view of the Pinnacle) the “Duke of Cumberland,” the moving spirit of the mighty boom, had become famous.

Then followed a great period of boom and expansion around the Gateway, led chiefly by Arthur who was a great promoter. Middlesboro expanded rapidly. The “Four Seasons” Hotel was built just south of the Gap, on the Tennessee side, with 700 rooms.

Hell’s Half-Acre

The triangular corner of Lee Co. under the Pinnacle was the location of dives and dens of vice, in so much that the place became known as “Hell’s Half-Acre.” The town of Cumberland Gap, and the mushrooming Middlesboro were places of business and of wickedness. In the summer of 1890 there appeared a different kind of character on the grounds of the great rush for wealth. One day a man went onto one of the vacant lots at Cumberland Gap and began to dig. When asked what he was doing, he replied, “I am building a church.” The strange workman was the Rev. A. A. Myers, evangelist from Kentucky. Without money or means, he simply went to work on faith that “The Lord will provide.”

The missionary and his wife soon drew attention and help - labor, material and means. They finished the building by autumn, and opened a church and Sunday School, and a private school in the basement. By this time, the Middlesboro boom began to decline, but the Rev. and Mrs. Myers drew more and more interest in their spiritual and educational enterprise.

Arthur’s boom began to decline near the end of 1890. Bank failures and depression in England put Arthur in bad position. But the decline at Middlesboro and the Gap was slow. The great show at the 700 room Four Seasons Hotel began to fade in the spring of 1892, just as Myers’ school and church were in the ascendency. The depression in America in 1893 finished the deflation of the Middlesboro boom.

Anxiously Rev. Myers watched the wrecking of the great Four Seasons Hotel. He wished he might be able to take it over for a school building to offer educational advantages to mountain boys and girls. But without means he saw it razed to the ground. Its showey career had been brief.

About that time, Gen. Oliver Otis Howard, on a lecture tour, was induced to stop at Harrow School as Myers’ Institute was called. Gen. O. O. Howard came on June 18, 1896. He recalled how President Abraham Lincoln had once requested him to do something for the people of the mountains, if opportunity afforded, after the War was over. Then the one-armed veteran suggested that a memorial school in honor of Lincoln be erected there.

Myers was elated. A deal was soon worked up by which 580 acres of land was acquired, including the Four Seasons foundation and driveways. Here was erected the Lincoln Memorial University, “to make education possible for the children of the humble common people of America among whom Lincoln was born.”

Public Road Movement

In 1905, Joe Bosworth, a young lawyer from Lexington, KY, was elected state representative for Bell, Harlan, Knox and Leslie counties. He came to Middlesboro and took up the cause of road improvement. The mountain people had come to count much on the railroads that were penetrating the isolated sections. But as the mines and other industries developed, it became apparent that good roads to reach the railroads were a vital need. Bosworth saw this situation and determined to try to do something about it.

The coming of the automobile emphasized the need of roads more than anything else. Then the Federal Government, through the office of Public Roads began to furnish engineering aid to localities that would furnish material and labor to make demonstration roads in places to encourage road building.

In 1907 the survey for a such a demonstration road was begun at the Gap, connecting Lee Co., VA; Bell Co., KY, and Claiborne Co., TN. Joe Bosworth was prominent in working up the movement, and the counties joined in the effort.

The next few months were to see a part of the Wilderness Road through the Gateway converted into a 14 foot Macadam road. It cost in round figures, for Middlesboro and Bell Co., $9,000; for Lee Co., $5,000, and for Claiborne something over $1,000. No more important link in the road could have been selected than this to show the value of good roads.

In 1908, there were only 680 miles of paved roads in the whole country. A few such demonstration roads and the automobile impressed people everywhere with the need. Bosworth’s good roads movement in Kentucky spread to many parts of the country. Nothing has ever done more to lift any people out of isolation and poverty than good roads.

The road movement progressed, and in a few years the isolated Lee Co. Gateway was penetrated by U. S. Highway 25, at first called the Dixie Highway, and by Highway 58 and 70, also U. S. Highway 421, and many secondary roads. At present, (1950) Lee Co. Alone has 108.8 miles of primary roads and 497.6 miles of secondary roads.

The early writers depicted a very backward people inhabiting the wilderness among the mountains. We can now safely say that much of their deliniation was overdrawn. But the fact remains that the condition of the mountain folks was difficult, and educational advantages few. But out of it all we today look upon a marvel of achievement, progress in travel, culture, education, homes and standards of living, nothing short of a miracle. The Gateway has taken its place side by side with progressive and more favorable located counties.

The Pinnacle

The north side of the Gap is the more rugged and remarkable, rising to a great height above the town of Cumberland Gap. If the Empire building in New York were placed in Cumberland Gap, it would lack 400 feet of coming up level with the Pinnacle. On the dizzy heights are many strange rock formations. From this towering position can be seen six states, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. Here were the strongest fortifications of the Confederacy which were a great point of bitter controversy during the Civil War.

Directly below the Pinnacle, on the side of the mountain is a cave, and below this cave flows a big spring of fine water, enough to run a mill. Here once stood a 60 foot waterwheel which ran a grist mill and other machinery. There was an iron furnace, a foundry and a carding machine. The mill was burned during the Civil War, but was rebuilt in 1865, and the plant continued to operate until 1870.

The Cumberland Gap Furnace used the fossil red iron ore from Poor Valley Ridge, a 60% ore, capable of turning out six tons of pig metal a day.

The Land of Caves

A cave is created by the action of carbon dioxide in water working its way along breaks or crevices in the limestone. Carbon dioxide dissolves lime. Although it is a slow process and has required millions of years, it has created through the long ages many underground channels, some of marvelous beauty, and awe inspiring wonder, and often miles in extent.

The lime-laden water dripping from the tip and evaporating leaves slow deposits which are suspended like icicles from the ceiling overhead. These are called stalactities. Some fall to the cave floor and there evaporates leaving a slow deposit which builds upward, making stalagmites.

Often in caves there is the formation of rock salt crystals or potassium nitrate. This is a bi-product of the chemical action in the limestone. It is one of the ingredients used in making black powder, and is known as saltpeter.

As we have observed in our study of the Cherokees of the Appalachian region, this is a land of many caves. All along the line of the Blue Ridge there are many large and wonderful caves. This endless system of caverns extends through the limestone region of Southwest Virginia. There are more than a score of explorable caves in Lee Co. alone, some of them quite interesting.

The Fannon Cave

On east Blackwater, twelve miles west of Duffield, is the Fannon Cave. This was known to pioneers in early settlement days. It opens at once into a nice large room that began to be used many years ago as a social center of amusement. Here large numbers would often gather on Sunday afternoons, and be entertained by hillbilly music, violins, banjos, guitars and mandolins, and singing. It reached its greatest interest in this line around 1900.

A large cold spring boils out from the cave floor, coming from beneath Powells Mountain from the direction of Wallens Creek. The cave was formerly used as a natural Frigidaire for the storing of milk and butter and other foods.

This cave and surrounding mountain lands have been possessed by the Fannon family for over 150 years. In 1950 the farm is still in possession of the descendants, being owned and operated by Mr. and Mrs. P. L. Fannon, who reared their family of nine children there.

Cudjo’s Cave

Cumberland Gap, the center of many wonders, and the scene of many historical events, seems to be lavishly enriched by marvelous provisions of nature. Right beneath the lofty heights of the Pinnacle, which rises to nearly 3,000 feet above sea level, there is a marvelous cave which attracts hundreds of visitors every year. Right in the saddle of the famous mountain pass is the entrance to Cudjo’s Cave. It is on U. S. Highway 25-E. It received its name from J. T. Trowbridge’s interesting story written in 1863, entitled “Cudjo’s Cave.” It is said that Trowbridge had never seen this Cave, though he gave a beautiful and graphic description of it in relation to his colored boy Cudjo, who is the chief character in the story.

The subterranean wonders of the Cave are captivating and marvelous. There are stalactities of onyx, sheets of draperies, vast stalagmites, domes and castles. One mighty stalagmite is said to be the largest in the world, standing 65 feet high and being 35 feet in circumference, requiring millions of years in the past to build up to its present gigantic proportions. The Cave has myriads of forms which the imagination may interpret into endless figures of men, animals and freaks of every description. Some of the countless forms are named Statue of Liberty, Cleopatra’s Bath Tub, King Solomon’s Castles, The Pipe Organ, Capitol Dome, Niagara Falls, Frozen Cascade, and many others.

This cave was opened to the public in 1934. Like Heiskell’s Cave near Ewing, and many others of the great limestone caves of the section, it seems to be an endless chain of vast rooms, hallways, and galleries, all with wonders that baffle description.

Historical National Park

A change of direction here and there from the old Wilderness Road has been made. Where hundreds once trudged in hardship, thousands now glide by with ease. A mighty transformation has indeed been effected by the changes of time. A new era has eclipsed the sad and rugged memories of the past.

Just west of the mountain pass, and right in the edge of the “Saddle” one seems a grim reminder of past tragedies. It is called Indian rock, so named because the Indians in pioneer days often hid behind that boulder to pounce upon emigrants passing along the Wilderness road. In later years it came to be used by highwaymen who would likewise lay in ambush to fall upon travelers and rob them.

In building the new highway, part of the famous Rock was blasted away. But enough is left for a marker and a point of interest to those who pass that way.

In 1941, Congress provided for a Memorial National Park around Cumberland Gap as a fitting tribute to the pioneers who have passed through the Gateway toward the great west, and who have wrested a live and progressive community from the great isolated wilderness of the past. This Park was to be shared by the three sister states.

On August 28, 1943, the governors of the three states came together on the scene to sign a compact for the three states, pledging their participation in the establishment of the Cumberland Gap Historical National Park. The governors were Keen Johnson of Kentucky, Prentice Cooper of Tennessee, and Colgate W. Darden of Virginia.

After signing the agreement, they good-naturedly cast lots to see which state might have the original copy of the pact to keep. The lot fell to Virginia.

The governors visited the tri-state marker on the mountain and other points of interest, contemplating the reminders of troubled days of the pioneers and of the Civil War. They viewed the mighty expansion of living evident in all directions. They were convinced that no manmade statue or monument could ever so fittingly mark the place as a Memorial park in which nature’s charms can be restored and maintained.

It is to be hoped that the old mill wheel, grist mill, foundry, furnace, and other memorials of Historic Cumberland Gap may be replaced as soon as possible after the Historic Park is well established. A movement has also been planned to construct a good road between the Gap and Knoxville, straightening and widening he grade into a first class four-lane thoroughfare.

Archaeology

As we have pointed out in our study of the Indians of Lee Co., the Cherokees were Mound Builders. Near the middle of the county and westward for a few miles have been found several mounds. Perhaps one of the most prominent is one not far from Thomas Walker High School. It is north of the railroad, and plainly visible from the main highway.

This mound is about 150 feet across, measuring from base level. Of course this has increased by plowing and weathering down the sides. It is about 18 feet in elevation, and has worn down no doubt several feet since its erection which must have been several centuries ago.

About 1876, Prof. Carr, of the Peabody Museum of Boston, MA, worked into this mound, and found several interesting things. He and Charles Johnson, who lived in the vicinity, made the excavation into the middle of the mound. They found the remains of several adults and children, and several ornaments and things of interest.

In the top of this mound was found the remains of a walnut tree which was estimated to have grown to the probable age of three hundred years. This puts the age of the mound back into the centuries.

We have previously discussed the Indian practice of burying their dead in a sitting position at the base of mounds, then heaping clay or stones and dirt high over them. They would often set a stake in the top of the mound, to which victims to be tortured would be tied and burned. These tragedies could strongly be suspected when ashes, charcoal and cinders were present on top of the mounds. The telltale ashes and cinders were found in the mound here described.

In this instance there seemed to have been cedar posts set in an oval or circular line about 300 feet in length not far from the outer perimeter and covered over with the mound. This seems to have been an unusual feature in this mound.

There are several smaller mounds and burying places in the county, but so far as we know, little effort has been made to learn their contents. There have been bones and trophies found also in several caves in the region.

Incidentally, in the excavation of the mound here referred to, Mr. Carr and Mr. Johnson had a near tragedy when the earth fell in on them while making the excavation, and they had a narrow escape.

By a study of the archaeology of the region, we are safe in saying that no other tribe or people ever occupied this territory before the Cherokees. No other remains have been buried here. Rarely a skeleton has been found among the Cherokee remains with elongated head, indicating artificial compression, which was not Cherokee practice. But these are undoubtedly captives from the Choctaw tribe.

Frequently a giant is found among the remains in burial mounds and caves. This is natural, as such giants now and then occurred among the Cherokees.