Michigan steel mill worker completes 3-state trip following in Daniel Boone's footsteps

Curtis Penix smiles as he arrives at the site of the original Fort Boonesborough, Ky., Thursday, March 26, 2015. Penix walked the 240 mile Boone Trace following the trail his 5th great grandfather Joshua Penix walked with Daniel Boone in 1775. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley) (The Associated Press)

Donna Jones, left, congratulates Curtis Penix as he arrives at the original site of Fort Boonesborough, Ky., Thursday, March 26, 2015, following his 240 mile trek of the Boone Trace. Curtis’ 5th great grandfather, Joshua Penix, was one of Daniel Boone’s men who walked to Fort Boonesborough along the Boone Trace in 1775 and helped blaze a trail from Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley) (The Associated Press)

FORT BOONESBOROUGH, Ky. – Keeping up a quick pace to the end, Curtis Penix didn't look like someone who walked nearly 240 miles in the footsteps of frontiersman Daniel Boone. The trip through the Appalachian terrain was inspired by his family's pioneering Kentucky roots.

The Michigan steel mill worker completed his 16-day backpacking journey Thursday.

It started in Tennessee, wound into Virginia and took him to hallowed ground in Kentucky — the place where Fort Boonesborough was built in 1775 after Boone and his band of axe men carved out Boone Trace. The path became an early artery for settlers heading westward.

Penix, 46, said he feels fine and could keep going, but didn't want to.

His journey started March 10 near Kingsport, Tennessee — the place where Boone's group left in March 1775.