Cumberland Gap National Historical Park counted 765,010 recreation visits in 2025, according to the National Park Service’s visitor-use statistics. By The Lee Daily Register’s calculation from that table, the total is 4.9% above 2024 and 8.6% above 2019, but 6.8% below 2016, the highest of the last ten years.
Part of the park sits in Lee County. The park service’s geology atlas names Lee County as its Virginia county, and the park’s rules compendium places Wilderness Road Campground there. The visitor center, though, is in Middlesboro, Kentucky. The reports reviewed for this story give one count for the whole park, not a Lee County share, so the visitor numbers below cover all three states.
Ten years of counts
The yearly totals have stayed in a narrow band, between 684,191 in 2018 and 820,387 in 2016. The drop from 2023 to 2024 was 8.5%. Park notes in the monthly comments file say Hurricane Helene closed sections of the park from late September 2024 and reduced the number of visitors.
| Year | Recreation visits | Change from 2019 |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 820,387 | +16.4% |
| 2017 | 737,547 | +4.7% |
| 2018 | 684,191 | -2.9% |
| 2019 | 704,598 | baseline |
| 2020 | 735,447 | +4.4% |
| 2021 | 814,119 | +15.5% |
| 2022 | 732,916 | +4.0% |
| 2023 | 797,346 | +13.2% |
| 2024 | 729,249 | +3.5% |
| 2025 | 765,010 | +8.6% |
October carries the year
Within a year, the busiest month has shifted. October led in six of the ten years, including each of the last four. By the Register’s count it averaged 86,402 visits from 2016 through 2025, about 11.5% of a typical year, while January averaged roughly 4%.
The latest October figure comes with a caveat. For October 2025, which totaled 90,411, the park’s notes say the government shutdown meant counters were not checked and staff estimated every one of them.
Where 2026 stands
Through September, the park recorded 578,486 visits. That is 0.4% below the same nine months of 2025 (581,027 visits) and 8.0% above 2019 (535,400). The 2019 comparison is distorted, because the data show only 164 visits in January 2019, a month whose note describes a main-gate count first entered as zero. February through September alone is up 3.0% on 2019. Park staff also estimated some January 2026 counts from the previous three years after dead counter batteries and a snow closure, and the park service labels all 2026 data preliminary.
The monthly report, run Oct. 28, ends with September. To match 2025’s total, October through December 2026 would need 186,524 visits, 1.4% more than the 183,983 counted in those months of 2025. Passing the 2019 total of 704,598 would take just over 126,000.
What the park service says visitors spend
A separate park service study turns visits into dollars. Its 2024 report estimates that the park’s 729,249 visitors spent $23.973 million in nearby communities, which supported 201 jobs and $24.31 million in economic output. That works out to about $33 a visit, by the Register’s arithmetic, and the study puts 89.7% of the spending on visitors from outside the area. The park’s release repeated the dollar totals but left out the job count.
The study does not break out Lee County. Its one state split assigns 93% of the park’s visits to Kentucky and 7% to Virginia. Applied to 2024, that is about 51,000 visits and $1.7 million, by the Register’s calculation. It is an accounting rule for state totals, not a measurement of what visitors spent in Lee County. Job counts from the earlier 2023 report (312) are not comparable, since the 2024 report says a model update notably affects estimates, especially for employment. As of Oct. 29, the park’s news page lists the 2024 figures as its most recent economic-impact release.
Lee County’s own visitor dollars
The county does have its own figures, from the Virginia Tourism Corporation. Its locality data for 2025, prepared by Tourism Economics, put direct visitor spending in Lee County at $23.17 million, down 0.2% from 2024. The file lists about 194 direct visitor-related jobs and $0.78 million in local taxes. Retail was the largest category at $7.8 million, ahead of lodging at $6.1 million. The underlying study counts visitors who stayed overnight or traveled more than 50 miles.
Compared with 2019, Lee County’s total is up 6.9%, against 24.6% for Virginia as a whole. Neighboring Scott County is down 14.1% and Wise County is up 16.1%. In 2020, park visits rose 4.4% from 2019 while Lee County’s visitor spending fell 22.5%. By the Register’s count, the two moved in the same direction in only three of the nine year-over-year comparisons since 2016. Neither source says how much of the county’s visitor spending comes from the park. The state’s research page also warns that these files should not be compared with earlier releases, because history was revised.
How the count is made
The park charges no entrance fee, according to the park service, and its own notes show a count built from road counters, visitor-center tallies and campground records, among other sources. Two changes affect comparisons across years. The park noted that campground figures rose from April 2022 because Recreation.gov gives better usage data, and in 2023 it began adding campground ranger-station visits and Hensley Settlement tours to its counts. The year-to-year changes above are therefore not strictly like for like.
