Daniel Boone - Cultural Legacy

Cultural Legacy

Many heroic actions and chivalrous adventures are related of me which exist only in the regions of fancy. With me the world has taken great liberties, and yet I have been but a common man. —Daniel Boone

Daniel Boone remains an iconic figure in American history, although his status as an early American folk hero and later as a subject of fiction has tended to obscure the actual details of his life. The general public remembers him as a hunter, pioneer, and "Indian-fighter", even if they are uncertain when he lived or exactly what he did. Many places in the United States are named for him, including the Daniel Boone National Forest, the Sheltowee Trace Trail, the town of Boone, North Carolina, and seven counties: Boone County, Ill., Boone County, Ind., Boone County, Neb., Boone County, W.Va., Boone County, Mo., Boone County, Ky., and Boone County, Ark.. Today, there are schools named for Daniel Boone in many different places, including Birdsboro, Pa., Douglassville, Pa., Gray, Tenn., and Chicago.

The U.S. Navy's James Madison-class Polaris submarine USS Daniel Boone (SSBN-629), was named for Boone. This nuclear submarine was decommissioned in 1994, and has since been scrapped. She was a member of a class of 41 submarines, all of which were named for great Americans from history, including the USS Lewis and Clark, two other noteworthy frontiersmen of the Great West.

Boone's name has long been synonymous with the American outdoors. For example, the Boone and Crockett Club was a conservationist organization founded by Theodore Roosevelt in 1887, and the Sons of Daniel Boone was the precursor of the Boy Scouts of America.