Daniel Boone was an independent spirit, to live in the wilderness. A crack shot at the age of twelve, he killed his first bear a year later. He was one of the first white men to cross the Appalachian Mountains and explore the region that would become the state of Kentucky. Both friend and foe to the Native Americans who lived there, he used his great knowledge of their culture to make life safe for America's earliest frontiersmen. His desire to push westward played a crucial role in the growth of the United States. Many of Boone's contributions have been lost in legend, but his larger-than-life personality and heroics are not myth.