"The story of Boone is the story of America. From the Blue Ridge to the Bluegrass, from the Yadkin to the Yellowstone, no man sought and loved the wilderness with more passion and dedication. Yet none led more settlers and developers to destroy that wilderness in a few decades."
In 1790, the last buffalo in the Bluegrass was killed. By then, the beaver were gone, and so were the Indians. Most of the forest had been cleared, and instead of small farms, by the early 19th century, thousands of acres of land were in large plantations.
Although he opened Kentucky and the great West to American expansion, Boone wasn't good at protecting his own claims in court and wound up owning no more land than that needed to bury him when he died in 1820.
Boone wasn't successful in the conventional sense, but his contribution to American history is enormous.
