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EARLY USE OF BUFFALO ROADS
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Dr. Walker writes the following under the date of June 19th, 1750: "We got to Laurel Creek early this morning, and met so impudent a Bull Buffaloe that we were obliged to shoot him, or he would have been amongst us."[1]

Buffalo roads should be divided into two classes—local and transcontinental. The former were the short roads which converged from the feeding and stamping-grounds, brakes and meadows, to the licks where the animal's natural craving for salt was satisfied. The transcontinental routes were those used in migrating from one portion of the country to another, like the great route through Cumberland Gap.

Such regions as Kentucky, where there were numerous salt licks and great areas of meadow-land near by, became favorite haunts for herds of buffalo, and here their local roads are of such a nature as to be reckoned among "the national curiosities of the state." Broad, hard, and often deep, these great roads were adopted immediately by Indians and white men alike as

  1. First Explorations of Kentucky (Filson Club Pub. No. 13), p. 70.