Pound Gap

Pound Gap
Looking into the gap from the east
Elevation	2,392 ft (729 m)
Traversed by	US 23
Location	Letcher County, Kentucky / Wise County, Virginia, United States
Range	Cumberland Mountains
Coordinates	37°09′17″N 82°37′58″W / 37.1548257°N 82.6326561°W / 37.1548257; -82.6326561Coordinates: 37°09′17″N 82°37′58″W / 37.1548257°N 82.6326561°W / 37.1548257; -82.6326561

The Pound Gap of Pine Mountain is on the Virginia/Kentucky border between Jenkins, Kentucky and Pound, Virginia. It served as a passage for early settlers to cross into Kentucky from Virginia. Today, U.S. Route 23 passes through the gap.

In 1750, early surveyors for the Ohio Company, possibly including Christopher Gist, passed through the gap. Many hunters used the gap to cross into Kentucky from Virginia for the next ten years. In 1774, Daniel Boone used the gap to cross into Kentucky, along with Michael Stoner, to warn the land surveyors of a possible attack from the Shawnee Indians. Boone referred to Pound Gap as "Sounding Gap". Circa 1800, some the first pioneer families of eastern Kentucky came to Kentucky through Pound Gap. In Letcher County today are hundreds of the descendants of these pioneers. It was seven families who first came here around 1798. The Adamses; the Webbs, the Caudills; the Crafts; the Hammonds, the Sturgills, and the Collinses. The Hoggs, Maggards, Wrights, Fraziers, Fieldses, Bates, Halls, Bentleys, and Hamptons followed closely after the first settlement.

In 1834, the General Assembly of Kentucky passed an act to improve the road (one of "Kentucky's Wilderness Traces") from Mount Sterling to Pound Gap to make travel to western Virginia more accessible. The route was widely used to drive livestock (horses, hogs and cattle) into Virginia and other southern markets and was shorter than other routes. The Mount Sterling - Pound Gap road was considered "the longest pre-Civil War state road" The route roughly follows modern day KY 11 from Mount Sterling to Clay City, then KY 15 from Clay City to Whitesburg, and finally US 119 from Whitesburg, along the Kentucky River, to its headwaters in Pound Gap.

In 1861 the Confederate States Army regiment under the command of Colonel John S. Williams took control of the gap. On March 16, 1862, 800 Union soldiers from the 42nd Ohio Infantry, under the command of Brigadier General James A. Garfield came from Piketon (present day Pikeville)in the Battle of Pound Gap, forcing the 500 Confederate soldiers (under command of Major John Thompson) after the deadly battle to retreat. General Garfield was the youngest (Union) general of the war, and gained fame from the Battle of Pound Gap.