Daniel Boone Statue, Cherokee Park
Daniel Boone (1734-1820) was one of the first frontiersmen to reach folk hero status in America. He was an explorer, hunter, surveyor, legislator, merchant, and Revolutionary War veteran. He blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap in Kentucky, which allowed western expansion beyond the original thirteen colonies.
He founded Boonesboro, one of the first English speaking settlements beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Boone was captured by the Shawnee Indians, adopted by the tribe, and then escaped to defend the Kentucky settlements. His adventures were published throughout America and Europe and he became a legend in his own time.
Boone lived a long life of 85 years. During Chicago’s World’s Fair in 1893, the Filson Club of Louisville displayed a 7-foot plaster statue of Daniel Boone made by Enid Yandell of Louisville. Yandell was an acclaimed sculptor and lived in New York, Chicago, and France, where she sculpted with Auguste Rodin. After the fair, prominent businessman C.C. Bickel had Yandell cast the statue in Bronze and placed it in Cherokee Park. C.C. Bickel hoped Cherokee Park would become a rural art gallery where statues of famous Kentuckians would be found for all citizens to enjoy. Yandell also created Cherokee Park’s Hogan’s Fountain.
