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Remote and formerly
inaccessible, the area now known as Breaks Interstate Park was
virtually undiscovered by the traveling public until after World
War II, when two-lane roads were built into the coal-rich
mountains. Black seams of coal are visible still in the roadside
cliffs throughout the area.
John Fox Jr., author of The
Trail of the Lonesome Pine, traveled three days in 1900 in a
horse-drawn buckboard to reach The Breaks from Big Stone Gap, 70
miles distant. His subsequent article in Scribner's magazine caused
a flurry of interest in what he called "the most isolated spot this
side of the Rockies."
Daniel Boone is credited
with discovering The Breaks in 1767 as he attempted to find
ever-improved trails into Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley
beyond. Passes through these rugged mountains were called "breaks"
by early settlers. The Breaks was one of only a handful of narrow
passageways through 125-mile-long Pine Mountain.
Even today, no more than
half a dozen roads cross Pine Mountain. Dickenson County, where The
Breaks is located, is one of the few counties in Virginia that does
not have a U.S. highway within its borders.
The Breaks was too much for
Boone and his two companions. When they tried to navigate this
awesome gorge by foot, they encountered copperheads and
rattlesnakes, as well as the Russell Fork of the Big Sandy River as
it crashed through a constricted canyon with 1,000-foot sheer
walls. They were overwhelmed by impenetrable tangles of
rhododendron and mountain laurel and a forest of towering trees,
some of which were 7 feet thick. The three men pitched camp nearby,
sat out the winter of 1768, then turned back to their homes on
North Carolina's more peaceful Yadkin River. |