slake nature's demand for this necessary product, which here the Great Provider for all animal life had laid up in unlimited quantity. . . . The backbone of the ridge along which the fight was to occur was about four hundred and fifty feet in width. Trigg was ordered to the right, and his route was close to the edge of the ravine which comes up from the bank of the Licking and reaches the top of the hill close to the point where the Sardis turnpike leaves the Lexington and Maysville road."[1]
The favorite paths of the settlers were these "traces" made hard as modern roads by the herds which had traversed them. Even the first main street of Lexington was almost impassable in bad weather, and was deserted for the road of the buffalo near by.[2] With the passing of the buffalo, their old routes became clogged in time with wind-strewn brush and fallen trees; but, so good was the course and so solid the footing, that the pioneers cleared these routes in preference to opening roads of
