Hey, folks, and welcome to Kentucky Life.

I'm your host, Chip Polston.

It's good to see you again.

This episode of our show is going to be dedicated to a single story.

It's about an ancient wildlife trail used by Native Americans and migrating herds of wildlife such as mastodon and bison.

It's known as the Warrior's Path.

The trail stretched from the Gulf to the Great Lakes, and in Kentucky, it ran from the eastern portion of our state from the Cumberland█Gap to the Ohio█River.

We're going to look at the trail's past and its Native American heritage, and at the Warrior's Path future as communities along the trail look to return the route to a path of commerce once again.

[music playing] [music playing] [music playing] Every path begins with a first step, but some paths were shaped long before we ever walked them.

[music playing] We're here at Sunrise in a place that existed long before Kentucky had a name.

Her valleys echoed with footsteps of great herds carving trails through forest and stone.

What we now call the Warrior's Path is more than just a road through the wilderness.

It's a common thread woven through centuries of human history, guiding us from the deep past into the world we know today.

[music playing] More than 400 million years ago, there was the Appalachian Mountains.

350 million years ago, a meteor struck the land that we now know as Kentucky.

Ridges were pushed up, and the Cumberland Gap soon formed.

25,000 years ago, megafauna, the mammoth, the mastodon, the ground sloth, the long-horned bison, found the gap in the Cumberland Mountains, and they were the first to create this ancient trail.

It was used by them more often than not as the best traveling route.

Obviously, animals know the best route to travel, whether it might be a ridge, a riverbed.

It goes through very rugged terrain and follows along the face of the Appalachian Mountains.

[music playing] 12,000 years ago, and perhaps even longer, the First Peoples followed those animals through the Cumberland█ Gap, and they began to create what we now know as the Warrior's Path.

It was the first path into Kentucky.

It was the major north-south route from Lake Erie down to the Gulf Coast.

It was a heavily traveled, well-used route that I think was the path of least resistance for both the animals and the people.

It wasn't made by wagon wheels; it was made by the hooves of the horses that the Native Americans rode and the settlers rode.

[music playing] The Shawnee had a different name for it, Athiamiowee, Path of the Armed Ones.

For more than 10,000 years, it was a route of commerce that tied all the people and all the cultures of North America together.

The people that came along and utilized those paths I think they further developed them as they would branch off and go to a settlement, a place they would trade, a place where they may go for conflict, to war with another tribe.

So, the original Warrior's Path was actually called the Common Path.

It wasn't called the Warrior's Path until later.

And over the years, this path then became one in which hunters like Dragging Canoe and my ancestors would use for deer, buffalo, and other sort of fur trading.

And then, as we approached the Revolutionary War era, much more utilized then for routes that ended up in more overt conflict, probably than had ever been seen along the path before.

That's when it starts being more commonly referred to as the Warrior's Path.

Following in the footsteps of the Great Herds, Paleo-Americans walked these same trails, leaving the earliest human mark on this ancient path.

We know that they traveled the path because of their tools that we have found along the path.

We find all sorts of what we call culture's clutter, artifacts.

It's people leaving their tracks.

Many things were traded along the path; salt, flint, precious minerals.

That's why in eastern Kentucky we still find seashells from Mobile Bay, Alabama.

We find copper from the Great Lakes.

Other types of materials, types of chert used to make tools, could come from southern Ohio.

In my historical explorations along the Warrior's Path, I found points from 13,000 years ago, a Paleo-period point right along the Warrior's Path, which says to me that that path has been in use for at least that long.

So, you put all these things together, and they all point to intercommunication between areas.

Even though Native Americans had traveled this trail for 10,000 years or more, the first Europeans didn't go through the gap until just a few hundred years ago.

A common place that early pioneers stopped was Flat Lick, Kentucky.

They stopped there because there was a salt lick, the same reason that Native Americans, the mastodon, the mammoth, and the buffalo had used that path for eons.

That salt was a valuable resource to the animals, and the Native Americans, and the pioneers.

It was one of the few methods of preserving meat that helped early settlers and the First Peoples get through the winters.

[music playing] Manchester, likewise, was a very popular spot for salt making.

It was the site of Goose Creek Salt Works.

[music playing] And that village is actually on the path as it travels through downtown Manchester.

We're fortunate that we have a part of the path that goes right through our town.

[music playing] The path passes through what we now know as many isolated mountain towns, some of which have become designated as Kentucky Trail Towns because they are vibrant hubs of outdoor recreation.

And McKee is one of those towns.

Jackson County is very fortunate to have many petroglyphs that have not been disturbed, mostly turkey footprints, some bear prints, bobcat, deer, human handprints, and human footprints.

We've recently developed a beautiful fall called Flat Lick Falls, [water gushing] that is right on the Warrior's Path, that people are coming from all over to visit that.

[music playing] The next stop on the Warrior's Path, just north of McKee, is Station Camp, just outside the trail town of Irvine, Kentucky.

[music playing] There was at one time a large Native American village at Station Camp.

The natives that lived here literally lived off this land.

You had the buffalo, numerous deer, turkey, the streams were teeming with fish.

[streaming] They were here to stay.

They may have moved with the seasons, but for the most part, this whole valley would have been their Station Camp their home.

It would be fascinating to know what this place really looked like before the Europeans came.

We believe the Shawnee had another word for Station Camp; ah wah nee.

Even today, if you go there, you'll see the grassy place for which it was named.

Later on, in colonial times, it was heavily traveled by both the Cherokee and the Shawnee, and even Daniel Boone made camp there.

It needs to be preserved, and it needs to be appreciated.

To understand the Warrior's Path is to recognize it as both a route of survival and a record of countless generations.

One of my ancestors, a direct ancestor, is named Abigail Raven Canoe.

She married my great-great-great-grandfather, Charles Roark.

And Charles was a part of Daniel Boone's regiment, and like many of the families there, they intermarried and had a very peaceful community with the Indigenous folks that were already settled in that area for generations.

We've been told by lots of people that Natives didn't live in Kentucky, they only hunted in Kentucky.

That's just not true.

There's too much sign and archaeological evidence to the contrary to buy into that today.

There were huge settlements here, there settlements that numbered in the thousands.

That was the biggest myth, I think, growing up in Kentucky, that continues to be told, unfortunately.

Well, there are indigenous folks that still live in Kentucky whose ancestors were here well over a thousand years ago.

[music playing] The Warriors Path leads us next to Pilot Knob, where the earth rises like a memory.

From here, you can almost see the footprints of the villages below, where life once moved with the rhythm of the seasons.

This overlook may have guided those who came long before us, the path threading quietly through the hills.

[birds chirping] Pilot Knob, outside of Stanton, Kentucky, is where Daniel Boone first saw the Bluegrass.

He could look toward Eskippakithiki, which is Indian Old Fields, located in Clark County and Montgomery County.

Indian old fields is, there's an archaeological record there of late prehistoric for an ancient occupation.

These were farmers who were gone by the time the White settlers came in.

They don't seem to last all that long, but the Central Kentucky was dotted with small circular villages of, say, five or six houses with a stockade around them, and people were planting corn, beans, and squash.

It was known as a trading post for various tribes and also pioneers.

And it could be where the word Kentake, Kentucky came from.

Where trade once moved through Indian Old Fields, the Warrior's Path also bore figures like Dragging Canoe, whose presence left a lasting mark on this land.

Dragging Canoe, he had a whole side of himself that was inspiring, gritty, and yet he wasn't without controversy.

He was rumored to be even a mentor figure to Tecumseh.

And we find Dragging Canoe in Virginia, the Cumberland Gap, all the way up to where we're sitting today.

Really running trading routes and hunting buffalo and deer and curating that entire really global economy.

And I think it's that spirit that Dragging Canoe exemplifies that I still see showing up in our culture in Appalachia, this commitment to the land.

[music playing] The next stop along the Warrior's Path of some great prominence is the area of Mount Sterling, Kentucky.

It was first called Little Mountain, and the Little Mountain was actually an ancient Native American earthwork.

Between Indian Old Fields and here Mount Sterling, there are all sorts of earthworks.

And fortunately, we have one that is still surviving, and that's the Gaitskill Mound, which is still standing outside here.

Just up the road to Sharpsburg, you have an Indian mound which is combined with the local cemetery.

It's a rather curious structure, rather similar to those under mounds in Ohio, which it was used for ritual things, which possibly involved funeral ceremonies.

The mounds speak of ritual and remembrance, but the Warrior's Path also holds stories of sacrifice.

In the Battle of Estill's Defeat, a slave named Monk Estill showed amazing resiliency and courage.

He saved Estill's Station from a group of Wyandots, carried a wounded comrade 25 miles to safety, and became Kentucky's first emancipated slave.

[music playing] Not far away, Morgan's Station bore the sorrow of Kentucky's last Indian raid.

Those taken north would one day return, recounting the very course of the Warrior's Path that carried them to the Great Lakes.

Once you come out of the mountains, north of the Cumberland Gap, and you start to get to the area where the mountains meet the Bluegrass, you travel along what's called the Pottsville Escarpment, which a geographical feature that results in many rocky cliffs, ridges, and points along the path.

They may have been used for lookouts, but certainly they were used as landmarks to mark the path.

One of these landmarks rises from the forested hills of Carter Caves State Park, a place shaped by time and water.

Just beyond it, the winding ridges and hidden valleys of Tygarts Gorge carry the whispers of the Warrior's Path through shadow and stone.

[crickets chirping] Numerous sites in this area.

The Adena lived in these hidden coves and hollers under these rock shelves and these cliffs for eons.

[music playing] Later, the Shawnee came into this country, and this may have been one of the last strongholds of the Shawnee.

And it's thought that they came through these very woods that we're in now.

[music playing] [hoofbeat] [water splashing] The path could be a dangerous place, but it was valuable in its later years to cover ground quickly on foot or on horseback.

But your best chance of survival was not to be on the path unless you were riding fast and hard with a lot of people.

The best place to be was to the side of the path because you never knew who was watching the path.

So, often, long hunters might meet each other on the Warrior's Path, and it might be the first sound that they hear is the clop of a hoof distantly.

They knew if it was mantel on rock, it was likely a long hunter; if it wasn't mantel on rock, that was the time to be wary.

But thankfully, horses have a good sense of what's going on.

They would often spot trouble before any man could.

With their keen ears and sense of smell, a long hunter could be detected pretty easily, as could a Shawnee.

And we hope to honor them and remember the people they were and the places that they were.

[music playing] The same path that carved through Tygarts Gorge also led people into Cascade Cave, a place of shelter, resources, and history stretching back millennia.

[birds chirping] A cave like this is really kind of a living, breathing thing.

It's what we call a living cave, and hey, this is part of being inside it is part of living cave.

[chuckles] When you walk into a place like the Lake Room here in Cascade, you're walking into a place that predates any kind of written history.

[water streaming] We know Native people have been using this area for as far back as 10,000 years.

Evidence shows that this area was used for not only just travel routes but also as places for people to get resources that they needed.

You had fresh water, you had native plants for medicinal purposes, you had tools for making resources such as weaponry.

Not only did you have the resources, you had protection.

You had natural geographic signage.

I mean, it was familiar.

People came here, and everything was recognizable.

You would have had Shawnee in this area, Delaware, Lenape.

Any of the Algonquin tribes would have been coming through here heavily.

[birds chirping] Certainly, one of the most remarkable and important sites along the path, since south of Portsmouth, and it's hard to believe that that was the last Indian village in Kentucky, at a place called Lower Shawnee Town.

Historical records document that as late as the 1750s, almost 1,500 Native Americans lived there, and the signs are still there.

[music playing] Here at the Ohio River, the Warrior's Path reminds us that history is never static.

It continues to shape communities, economies, and the way future generations connect with their past.

This ancient path that we now call a war path is once again becoming a path of commerce.

It's tying together many economically distressed, isolated mountain towns such as Manchester, McKee, Irvin, Morehead, and Olive Hill, Kentucky.

I think the one thing about the Warriors Path is it's a deep-rooted history.

So, if we can invest in that kind of history and that remarkable coverage of Warriors Path, we can teach generations to come, not just our visitors coming to our communities but also the children that are in our communities.

That's why we started a prevention program, the Pathfinder Initiative, a quality-of-life program for our kids to get involved in looking for the path.

Instead of teaching them to say no, finding things for them to say yes to.

[music playing] The Appalachian Rekindling Project now has land that we once were told is only good for its coal and its lumber, is now being rematriated to be a home where indigenous folk and Appalachians alike can come and create community together and be in retreat with one another.

A lot of ancestors of people that will come here in the future will know that this is where their ancestors traveled on horse or walked to be able to have a better life for them and their future generations.

Along the Warriors Path, we see the intersection of history and humanity.

It's a record of how people lived, traded, and endured.

Carrying lessons that still echo across the land to this day.

When you come to a place like this and look at this, you're not just standing here enjoying the beauty.

You're experiencing a history that spans over thousands and thousands of years, just like the first Native people who would have walked in here and just been in awe and found everything that they found.

It tells the complete story of this land that we now know as Kentucky.

[music playing] And I think if we unearth the history of it, we also realize that it's a path of reconciliation.

That path of reconciliation has been one that my own family has been on, as we have tried to reconcile with our own ancestry and story.

And I think that's a path that others, I hope, will go on as well.

If we acknowledge the existence, the permanent existence of indigenous people in places like Kentucky, we can reconcile with that past so that we can have a more honest, forward-thinking, healing vision of the future.

[music playing] As the sun sets over lands once traveled by mastodon, bison, and countless generations of people, the Warriors' Path reminds us that history is not confined to books.

It lives in the soil, rivers, forests, and ridgelines of Kentucky.

These ancient trails bore not just footsteps, but the movement of survival, tradition, and connection etched across centuries to shape the Kentucky we inherit.

And as local communities work to keep this path alive, we walk forward with a deeper understanding of those who came before us and carry their lessons into the future.

[music playing]