Cumberland Gap|Cumberland Mountains in Requiem for a Nun (Location)

The "Cumberland Gap" through which the three earliest white settlers in Jefferson travel into Tennessee is a narrow pass over the Cumberland Mountains near the intersection of the states of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee (6). It was a major route over the Appalachians for the pioneers who first inhabited the frontier southwest. By the mid-20th century, the narrative notes that "long looping skeins of electric lines bring electric power from the Appalachian mountains" to modern Yoknapatawpha (194).