[music playing] [music playing] [music playing] We're having a great time here today at Fort Boonesborough State Park.

This is Jack Winburn.

He's the park manager.

Jack, thanks so much for letting us look around today.

Glad to be here.

So, what's the origin story of Fort Boonesborough?

How did all this come to be?

Well, the year is 1775.

A group of gentlemen out of North Carolina got the idea, a land speculation company, that they were going to create the 14th colony.

It would be named the Transylvania Colony.

They hired Daniel Boone, who was known to be an explorer and knowledgeable of Kentucky, to lead a party of axe men who would mark a trail to central Kentucky, where they hoped to establish the capital of their colony.

And fortunately, that all started right around the time of the beginning of the Revolutionary War, so the colony never really happened.

Right.

So, why this spot?

Why do you think Boone and his men picked this location?

Well, he had explored here before, so he knew about central Kentucky.

He knew that the Kentucky River below here had palisades, cliffs on both sides.

This is about as far as you could go and still be able to get across the river from one side to the other.

And there was a natural plain here where the buffalo and the natives had maybe burned it off or whatever and all, so it was a clearing already to start with, and he knew of it.

So this, where we are right now, is not the original location of where the fort actually stood.

Why is it not in that spot?

Well, the original site was down on the Kentucky River.

When the Corps of Engineers locked and dammed the river, it creased flooding.

And so it was moved up here when it was built in 1974 to get out of the floodplain.

So, the folks that lived there back in the day, what was a day-to-day life like for them?

It had to be pretty rough.

It had to be rough.

I mean, you were hunting firewood, cooking continuously, trying to find food, hunting, trapping, just surviving.

And they were all land speculators themselves to some degree, so they were all out marking off territory and land that they wanted to claim when this was settled.

So it was a hard lot.

So that was another question.

Who was it that really was here besides Boone and the original men that came here?

Who were the other folks that came and why did they want to come here?

Well, Daniel was here, other famous pioneers like Simon Kenton, Richard Calloway, Squire Boone, Daniel's brother, they all came here.

And it was a base station, more or less, to try to settle out in the area.

They all ultimately created their own little small stations and farms and things around.

And Boonesborough was just a spot to retreat to during times of danger from Native Americans.

So, given that, did they encounter a lot of Native Americans and have a lot of issues through here?

Yes, there were several.

In 1778, they had an 11-day siege where the fort was surrounded by a party of 400 Shawnee and a few other mixed tribes.

And it was led by some French and Canadian mercenaries working for the British government out of Detroit.

Well, it is a remarkable story, and we look forward to continuing to explore here.

Jack, thanks so much for letting us be here today.

We're glad to have you.

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