Middlesboro in the Cumberland Gap
Middlesboro sits inside a natural bowl in Bell County at the far southeastern tip of Kentucky, adjacent to the Cumberland Gap. The city is unique in the United States for being built entirely within a meteorite impact crater, a geological feature roughly 300 million years old and about 3 miles in diameter. This explains the unusual flat terrain surrounded by ridges in an otherwise mountainous area.
The Cumberland Gap, a natural passage through the Appalachian Mountains, was the primary route for westward migration in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Daniel Boone blazed the Wilderness Road through the gap in 1775, and an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 settlers passed through it between 1775 and 1810. The Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, managed by the National Park Service, preserves the gap and surrounding terrain at the junction of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia.
Middlesboro was founded in 1890 by British investors who planned to build an industrial city based on the area's coal and iron resources. The venture failed during the financial panic of 1893, but the city survived as a coal mining and railroad center. The population has declined from its peak as coal production dropped, and today roughly 10,700 residents remain.
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Middlesboro sits inside a natural bowl in Bell County at the far southeastern tip of Kentucky, adjacent to the Cumberland Gap. The city is unique in the United States for being built entirely within a meteorite impact crater, a geological feature roughly 300 million years old and about 3 miles in diameter. This explains the unusual flat terrain surrounded by ridges in an otherwise mountainous area.
The Cumberland Gap, a natural passage through the Appalachian Mountains, was the primary route for westward migration in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Daniel Boone blazed the Wilderness Road through the gap in 1775, and an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 settlers passed through it between 1775 and 1810. The Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, managed by the National Park Service, preserves the gap and surrounding terrain at the junction of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia.
Middlesboro was founded in 1890 by British investors who planned to build an industrial city based on the area's coal and iron resources. The venture failed during the financial panic of 1893, but the city survived as a coal mining and railroad center. The population has declined from its peak as coal production dropped, and today roughly 10,700 residents remain.
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