of the area by Native Americans, and Martin did not return until 1775. In 1775 Daniel Boone, hired by the Transylvania Company, arrived in the region leading a company of men to widen the path through the gap to make settlement of Kentucky and Tennessee easier. On his arrival, Boone discovered that Martin had already arrived in Powell Valley, where Martin and his men were clearing land for their own settlement – the westernmost settlement in English colonial America at the time. By the 1790s, the trail that Boone and his men built had been widened to accommodate wagon traffic and became known as the Wilderness Road. Several American Civil War engagements occurred in and around the Cumberland Gap and are known as the Battle of the Cumberland Gap. In June 1862, Union Army General George W. Morgan captured the gap for the Union. In September of that year, Confederate States Army forces under Edmund Kirby Smith occupied the gap during General Braxton Bragg's Kentucky Invasion. The following year, in a bloodless engagement in September 1863, Union Army troops under General Ambrose Burnside forced the surrender of 2,300 Confederates defending the gap, gaining Union control of the gap for the remainder of the war. It is estimated that between 200,000 and 300,000 European-American settlers passed through the gap on their way into Kentucky and the Ohio Valley before 1810. Today 18,000 cars pass beneath the site daily, and 1.2 million people visit the park on the site annually. The park features many hiking trails. U.S. Route 25E passed overland through the gap before the completion of the Cumberland Gap Tunnel in 1996. The original trail was then restored. Historic district The gap and associated historic resources were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district on May 28, 1980. Biology and ecology Flora Within the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park there are currently 855 known species of vascular plants identified, but that number is expected to increase with reports from National Park Service inventory and monitoring programs. There are 15 various vegetation communities throughout the park, with some of them in special locations, such as mountain bogs, low-elevation wetlands, and rocky bluffs. Fauna Of the 371 species of animals listed so far within the park, 33 are mammals, 89 are birds, 29 amphibians, 15 reptiles, 27 fish, and 187 are insects, however many others remain to