On a recent Friday, Ranger Jody arranged for all the staff at the park to take a Cumberland Gap Tunnel Tour. Cumberland Gap National Historical Park owns the tunnel, but leases it out to the Kentucky and Tennessee Departments of Transportation for management. We drive through the tunnel almost every day and usually twice on …
Living History Training at Cumberland Gap
During the last couple of weeks, Tom and I have been doing Living History Training at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. It was as if the rangers suddenly realized that we would be leaving soon and we were the only people who knew how to do things. Living History Training was inserted on the schedule …
Nineteen 19 Grill in Cumberland Gap, Tennessee
Recently Karen Graham came down to visit us. It was the first time that Karen has been able to visit us at a park where we have been working. We were delighted to have her come and spend time with her. During her visit, she and I joined Karen Blondell at the Nineteen 19 Grill …
General Longstreet Museum in Russellville, TN
One day, when Tom and I were doing living history at Cumberland Gap, two men from the General Longstreet Museum in Russellville, Tennessee stopped by. We talked to both of them for quite a while. They were preparing for the fund-raising bus tour given by the museum once a year. The younger man, the sole …
85 Miles of Trails at Cumberland Gap
Cumberland Gap National Historical Park has 85 miles of trails. This makes it the park with the most trails of any that we have worked at except for Death Valley. Over our four months at Cumberland Gap, Tom and I have hiked on most of the trails. In fact, the only one we haven’t been …
Cumberland Falls State Park
On one of our adventure days, Tom, Robin, and I went to Cumberland Falls State Resort Park. Sometimes we have visitors come in to Cumberland Gap National Historical Park and say that they want to see the falls. At first that question threw me, because we don’t really have any waterfalls in the park. But …
Levitt AMP Middlesboro Music Series
One of the things we have really enjoyed about living here is attending the Levitt AMP Middlesboro Music Series. This is a series of free concerts held on Thursday nights in downtown Middlesboro. We attended six of the ten concerts this year. The Levitt AMP Middlesboro Music Series has been held every summer since 2015. …
Montgomery Grocery Store
Montgomery Grocery Store is the closest grocery store to where Tom and I are living while we work at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. Ranger Lucas told us about it on our first day of work so we stopped by there shortly after. We have been back several times, but not usually for groceries. Montgomery …
Bison Hair and Stinging Nettles
The I have been conducting experimental archaeology with bison hair and stinging nettles in my textile lab at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. I didn’t realize I was doing experimental archaeology until our park superintendent, Lisa Baldwin, took an interest in my experiment. I just thought I was doing living history. The experiment started with …
Middlesboro, Kentucky: Crater City
Middlesboro, Kentucky, is the largest town within an hour of where Tom and I are living this summer. Fortunately, it has about 10,000 residents, so it has three grocery stores including a Walmart and a Kroger. Although I consider 10,000 people to be a good-sized small city, Middlesboro has more of a village or small-town …