The story of the First Kentucky Colonel being Daniel Boone is factually and historically correct, it is not folklore or fiction, if anyone else can be credited with the creation and origin of the pioneer government of Can-tuck-ee, Colonel Boone is right there as one of its 13 first colonels, delegates and colonist settlers drafting what has become known as the "Kentucke Magna Charta" (Transylvania Constitution) in 1775. Most of the laws established by these colonels and their colonists remain in common-law today and were included by other state constitutions.
They never would have called themselves a "Kentucky Colonel," but they were in fact the "Colonels" and they wrote laws that created the governments, made peace with the natives, surveyed the frontier and made their mark one that has survived to the present creating the customs and traditions we observe today. The fact that all this plays out in Kentucky with "colonels" as the sovereign "heads of the colony" is not a coincidence with anything more than it taking place during the Revolutionary Period before the founding of the United States or the fact that Boone originally hunted in Can-tuck-ee since June 7th, 1769.
Col. Daniel Boone is actually credited as the protagonist of the founder of the Transylvania Company, which was formed after Boone lost his son in his first settlement attempt in Kentucky. Col. Judge Richard Henderson of North Carolina befriended Boone, commissioning him a Colonel of the company that built the Wilderness Road (Wild Road) and Boonesborough. It would be almost two years before one of Boone's lieutenants, John Bowman is sent to Williamsburg to meet with Governor Patrick Henry to make the Transylvania Colony part of Virginia. The Governor made Transylvania Lt. Col. John Bowman into Commonwealth Colonel John Bowman of Kentucky County. When Col. Bowman returned to Transylvania he commissioned Daniel Boone a "Lt. Colonel" as well as many others. After that little is known of John Bowman except that he continued to commission new colonels until 1783. What we can also say about Col. Daniel Boone is that he was the "First Colonel" to be commissioned under the Patriot Law by a Private Chartered Company which was enacted on January 1, 1775, we also know he commissioned many other colonels.