Our History
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.
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