After crossing the Clinch River settlers could take a major short cut off the Wilderness Trail known forever as the “Devil’s Race Path.” Pioneers could leave the main trail on Stock Creek and head up a ridge known as Purchase Ridge. As the wagons labored up the steep grade of Purchase Ridge, they were easy prey for thieves that lived there. About 1790, men by the name of James Paine and Simon Dotson settled at in the area. Paine's house became a resort for thieves, fugitives and other criminal types. Dotson made whiskey and sold it to those men making it sometimes very dangerous for travelers to pass through the gorge. The immigrants would race their wagons to avoid being waylaid by the hoodlums. At the bottom of the ridge was an area called Little Flat Lick where settlers were able to replace their meat supplies. Little Flat Lick was one of the best-known places on the Kentucky Path. At Little Flat Lick (now Duffield, Virginia) there were possibly three trails entering Kane's Gap to Powell Valley and then the Cumberland Gap.
I live within a half mile of what is left of the "Devil's Race Path". In the summer, when I was a teen my cousin, Linda, and I would ride through the "Race Path" on bicycles. In the winter, we would watch the boys sled ride of the steep part of the "Race Path".
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