The Tennessee, Ohio and Great Lakes Trail on its main path. Primary loops curved through the Parmleysville area of south Wayne County, through Monticello and Mill Springs, to Burnside in the Lake Cumberland region.

The following article by William E. Myer was originally published in the 42nd Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1924-25. This is abridged.

More or less well-established trails made by wild animals in search of food or drink existed upon the earth for long ages before the appearance of man, changing very slowly as local conditions were altered by erosion, climatic shifts, or other causes. Man found the lands already covered with them and began using them because they led him to water and salt licks and other places where the primal necessities — water, food and materials for clothing — could be obtained. Later they became media of friendly or hostile communication between the people themselves.

There was far more travel among Indians than is usually supposed. This was sometimes for barter-commerce, sometimes for visits of a social, friendly, or religious character, and sometimes for war or adventure. There are well-authenticated cases of American Indians having gone on visits to a series of distant friendly tribes, covering from 1,000 to 2,000 miles, and being absent from home for two months or more. A friendly visitor with a new sacred or social dance was always welcome in any Indian village, and great pains were taken to learn it. In times of war or when on special missions, they went much farther. For example, Tecumseh or his agents covered the entire country from the Seminole of Florida to the tribes on the headwaters of the Missouri River.

One such great trail (used in the native travels) in the southeast portion of the country can be called "The Tennessee River, Ohio, and Great Lakes Trail." The Indian name for this trail is unknown. The whites did not realize its extreme length and had no designation for it as a whole. Therefore, the writer has given the name because it connected the regions mentioned.

Its branches began at the Indian settlements in north Georgia, where they connected with many well-known trails which led to all portions of the southern United States. Thence the branches continued to the old Indian towns on the Tennessee River in the suburbs of Chattanooga, where they consolidated into one which ran up the west side of the Tennessee River, following the more level lands. The trail passed many Indian towns and settlements on this stretch.

The trail followed up the valley of the Emory River from Rockwood and passed to the Indian settlements on the Cumberland River around the junction of the South Fork of the Cumberland River at Burnside; and also to those at Mill Springs and Rowena. Thence it led to the Indian settlements in central Kentucky and to the present sites of Danville, Lexington and Paris.

It then passed down Licking River to its mouth, opposite Cincinnati, where it crossed the Ohio River and ran up to the Big Miami River, touching the many towns along its banks, until it reached the numerous villages about its headwaters. Here it crossed over to the headwaters of the Maumee, and passed down that stream to Lake Erie, the shores of which it skirted as far as Detroit, where it connected to the Indian routes of the Great Lakes region.