Gazetteer
Housing Units (2000): 111
Land area (2000): 0.323842 sq. miles (0.838748 sq. km)
Water area (2000): 0.000000 sq. miles (0.000000 sq. km)
Total area (2000): 0.323842 sq. miles (0.838748 sq. km)
FIPS code: 18880
Located within: Tennessee (TN), FIPS 47
Location: 36.598976 N, 83.667318 W
ZIP Codes (1990): 37724
Note: some ZIP codes may be omitted esp. for suburbs.
Headwords:
Cumberland Gap
Wikipedia
The Cumberland Gap is a narrow 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.
Famous in American colonial history for its role as a key passageway through the lower central Appalachians, it was an important part of the Wilderness Road and is now part of the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.
Long used by Native Americans, the Cumberland Gap was brought to the attention of settlers in 1750 by Dr. Thomas Walker, a Virginia physician and explorer. The path was explored by a team of frontiersmen led by Daniel Boone, making it accessible to pioneers who used it to journey into the western frontiers of Kentucky and Tennessee.
"Cumberland Gap" is an Appalachian folk song that likely dates to the latter half of the 19th century and was first recorded in 1924. The song is typically played on banjo or fiddle, and well-known versions of the song include instrumental versions as well as versions with lyrics. A version of the song appeared in the 1934 book, American Ballads and Folk Songs, by folk song collector John Lomax. Woody Guthrie recorded a version of the song at his Folkways sessions in the mid-1940s, and the song saw a resurgence in popularity with the rise of bluegrass and the American folk music revival in the 1950s. In 1957, the British musician Lonnie Donegan had a No. 1 UK hit with a skiffle version of "Cumberland Gap".
The song's title refers to the Cumberland Gap, a mountain pass in the Appalachian Mountains at the juncture of the states of Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky. The gap was used in the latter half of the 18th century by westward-bound migrants travelling from the original 13 American colonies to the Trans-Appalachian frontier. During the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865), Union and Confederate armies engaged in a year-long back-and-forth struggle for control of the gap.
Cumberland Gap is a mountain pass in the Appalachian Mountains at the juncture of the U.S. states of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia.
Cumberland Gap may also refer to:
- Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, a U.S. national park protecting the Cumberland Gap
- Cumberland Gap Tunnel, a tunnel that carries U.S. Route 25E under the aforementioned mountain pass
- Cumberland Gap (folk song), an Appalachian folk song made famous by a Woody Guthrie recording in the 1940s and a skiffle version by Lonnie Donegan in 1957
- Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, town near the Cumberland Gap pass
- Cumberland Gap, a former six mile stretch of the A74 road in Cumberland, England between the A74(M) and M6 motorways, now replaced by an extension to the latter
Usage examples of "cumberland gap".
The Rebels added considerably to those in their hands by their captures at Chickamauga, while we gained a great many at Mission Ridge, Cumberland Gap and elsewhere, so that at the time we arrived in Richmond the Rebels had about fifteen thousand prisoners in their hands and our Government had about twenty-five thousand.
We talked of the Clinch Mountains, the Cumberland Gap country, and folks who'd moved west to hunt for land.
For the horses were to be rested and meat was to be got, as we could not use our guns so freely on the far side of Cumberland Gap.
Between the main ridge upon which Cumberland Gap is situated, and the next range on the southeast which runs parallel with it, is a narrow, long, very fruitful valley, walled in on either side for a hundred miles by tall mountains as a City street is by high buildings.
The Cap would also be navigating the famous Cumberland Gap, the same natural breach frontiersmen had used to get through the wall of the Appalachian Mountains on their way to the Plains and the Pacific.
Nevertheless he had toiled on and was passing through Cumberland Gap.
We Sacketts hail from the Cumberland Gap in Tennessee, and pa always taught us never to give up nothing without a fight.
The Smoky Mountain Sacketts, the Cumberland Gap Sacketts, and the Clinch Mountain Sacketts.
We talked of the Clinch Mountains, the Cumberland Gap country, and folks who'.
Seemed like he knew every pretty girl from Cumberland Gap to the Highland Rim.
As the Autumn of 1863 advanced towards Winter the difficulty of supplying the forces concentrated around Cumberland Gap--as well as the rest of Burnside's army in East Tennessee--became greater and greater.
He had been dreaming of an Appalachian journey he had made with his father when he was ten, along the borders of Kentucky and the Carolinas, through the Cumberland Gap.
Again my daughter sounded like a pioneer wife that had brought her family through the Cumberland Gap past rocks and rapids.
There was then a temporary hitch in the exchange, but it would all be straightened out in a few days, and it might not be a month until we were again marching out of Cumberland Gap, on an avenging foray against some of the force which had assisted in our capture.