Cumberland Gap, Tennessee
N 36° 35.946 W 083° 40.085
17S E 261338 N 4053715
The town of Cumberland Gap has stood at southern end of the famous pass for over 200 years. Due to shifts in state boundaries, it has been a part of Kentucky and Viginia, but now is in Claiborne County in Tennessee.
Waymark Code: WM43M1
Location: Tennessee, United States
Date Posted: 07/02/2008
Views: 16
CUMBERLAND GAP, 1.1 m. (1,304 alt., 369 pop.), named for the nearby pass, is in that corner of East Tennessee first explored by white men.
This place, merely a hamlet at the time, was the scene of much activity during the War between the States because the gap for which it is named was of strategic importance. Since it was the logical route for a Union invasion of East Tennessee, it was fortified by the Confederates under Gen. Felix K. Zollicolfer in May, 1861; but in June of that year Gen. George Morgan and two Union brigades drove the Confederates away. In September a force of Confederates under General Stephenson met Morgan's column in Tennessee and forced them back to the gap. ln the meantime, Confederate forces under Gen. E. Kirby-Smith had joined Stephenson and built strong fortifications about four miles from Pinnacle Mountain. There Morgan had mounted a huge cannon, Long Tom, to sweep the Tennessee approach to the gap. Many of his supplies were stored in caves under the Pinnacle, among them Cudjo’s Cave. When Morgan learned that the Confederates were maneuvering to turn his flank, he issued orders for a retreat. The Union soldiers gathered everything they could carry and stacked the rest across the gap in an enormous pile to which they set fire. The subsequent explosion and fire checked the Confederate advance with a flame wall that also effectively covered the Union retreat.
In 1863 Union troops under General Burnside met Stephenson in Tennessee and forced him to retreat to the pass, where they surrounded the Confederates and forced them to surrender. Until the end of the war the gap and the town were in Union hands.
lt is not known when or by whom the first settlement was made on this site, but it was probably soon after the American Revolution, when thousands of immigrants streamed westward over the Boone trail.
About 300 yards north of the business center is the end of the railroad tunnel, cut through solid rock for a distance of nearly a mile.
The HOLBROOK COLLECTION, at Pinnacle Cafe, contains old postage stamps and also relics of the War between the States, including guns, swords, ammunition, flags, and albums with pictures of Army officers.
--Tennessee: A Guide to the State, 1939
Today the town looks much as it did in 1939. The center of the town was made a National Register of Historic Places Historic District in 1990 and most of the buildings date from the 1890s and 1920s.