Wilderness Road State Park is about 327 acres that lie astride the Wilderness Road, a route carved by Daniel Boone in 1775. The route, which followed a buffalo trace, opened America’s first western frontier. Most notable in the park are the Karlan Mansion, which was built in 1877, a state-of-the-art visitor center and Martin’s Station, a reconstructed colonial frontier fort that was located near this site in 1775.
Wilderness Road offers picnicking, hiking, and nature and living history programs. Visitors can enjoy the visitor center, home to a theater showing an award-winning docudrama, “Wilderness Road, Spirit of a Nation.” The center also has a frontier museum and a gift shop with unique regional gifts.
Guests also enjoy the park’s picnic shelters, a 100-seat amphitheater, ADA-certified playground, sand volleyball court and horseshoe pits. Visitors can hike, bike or horseback ride on the 6.5-mile Wilderness Road Trail.
Fishing is available at Indian Creek which has a 1-mile section stocked with brown and rainbow trout. Nearby Powell River has plenty of redbreast sunfish, rock bass, smallmouth bass, catfish and musky. There are no public access points on the Powell River so anglers should get permission from the landowner before accessing the river from private land.
The 1870s era Karlan Mansion is available for weddings and meetings. It has a solarium that’s perfect for showers, birthdays and other special functions. The park’s visitor center theater and amphitheater also are available for group functions.
The park offers primitive camping for groups. Campers must bring drinking water; portable toilets are available if requested in advance, showers are not. Reservations can be made at the visitor center. (Camping is also available six miles away at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, Middlesboro, Ky.)
