this portal ran the famous "Warrior's Path," known to wandering
hunters, the "trail of iron" from Fort Watauga and Fort Chiswell,
which Daniel Boone widened for the settlers of Kentucky. To the
southwest lay the Blue Grass region of Tennessee with its various
trails converging on Nashville from almost every direction. Today
the Southern Railway enters the "Sapphire Country," in which
Asheville lies, by practically the same route as the old
Rutherfordton Trail which was used for generations by red man and
pioneer from the Carolina coast. In our entire region of the
Appalachians, from the Berkshire Hills southward, practically
every old-time pathway from the seaboard to the trans-Alleghany
country is now occupied by an important railway system, with the
exception of the Warrior's Trail through Cumberland Gap to
central Ohio and the Highland Trail across southern Pennsylvania.
And even Cumberland Gap is accessible by rail today, and a line
across southern Pennsylvania was once planned and partially
constructed only to be killed by jealous rivals.

These numerous keys to the Alleghanies were a challenge to the
men of the seaboard to seize upon the rich trade of the West
which had been early monopolized by the French in Canada. But the
challenge brought its difficult problems. What land canoes could
compete with the flotillas that brought their priceless cargoes
of furs each year to Montreal and Quebec? What race of
landlubbers could vie with the picturesque bands of fearless
voyageurs who sang their songs on the Great Lakes, the Ohio, the
Illinois, and the Mississippi?

In the solution of this problem of diverting trade probably the
factor of greatest importance, next to open pathways through the