User:SheepNotGoats/Breaks

Breaks Interstate Park, also referred as the "Grand Canyon of the South", is located in southeastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia at the terminus of Pine Mountain (ridge). The park's size is 4,500 acres (18 km²). At 1,600 feet and five miles long, the Breaks is one of the deepest gorges east of the Mississippi River, through which the Russell Fork of the Big Sandy River and Clinchfield Railroad (now the CSX Transportation Kingsport Subdivision) run. It is accessed via Virginia State Route 80, between Haysi, Virginia and Elkhorn City, Kentucky, and passes through the community of Breaks, Virginia east of the park.

Interstate
Breaks is one of two interstate parks in the United States. Two-thirds of the park lies in Dickenson County, Virginia, while the remaining third is in Pike County, Kentucky.

Recreation
The park contains 33 miles of trails, an 18-acre lake. The Russell Fork River, which contains up to class VI rapids, is popular for whitewater rafting.

History
The Breaks were first discovered in 1767 by Daniel Boone, and the land that comprises that park was first owned by Richard Potter

The first paved road was not built until the 1950s.

In 1870, Robert E. Withers visited the gorge, observing that the "bold and perpendicular walls of sandstone rise in naked majesty hundreds of feet high while the waters chafe".

It was first described in print in 1900, when John Fox, Jr. wrote an article for Scribner's Magazine describing the area as "the most isolated spot this side of the Rockies".