Boone’s Lick

From the diary of a traveler: “Sometime during the spring or early summer of 1805, Nathan Boone, son of Daniel Boone??headed west with half a dozen men and packhorses laden with heavy kettles. When they reached the springs or lick, they built a fireplace or furnace from nearby rock. It extended thirty feet with a width of five feet. The walls rose four feet and the top remained open in order to hold their forty kettles over the flames. Once the furnace had been completed, they cut and stacked wood, dipped water from the fast flowing spring, filled kettles, and started the fire.”