United States. National Park Service

“ This Tennessee valley of the Middle Prong of the Little River does not differ widely from Deep Creek or Greenbrier or Cosby or most of the other branches and hollows of the Smokies. Each, including Tremont, penetrates the hills, divides them like a furrow, and protects its own rocky, racing stream with a matting of thick, green growth. Nearby Cades Cove and North Carolina’s Cataloochee might guard a few hectares of lush, hill-cradled pasture or farmland, but even these are stamped with the clear, cool air and feel of the Great Smoky Mountains. ”

“ In the early morning hours they fill the wooden benches of tiny Palmer’s Chapel for singing and preaching and reminiscing; at noon they share bountiful food spread on long plank tables beside clear, rushing Cataloochee Creek; in the mellow afternoon they rediscover the valley. For what lures the stranger is what lures the old families back. They come to sense again the beauty and the permanence and even the foggy mystery of the Great Smokies. ”

“ The present-day Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, located upon a peaceful estate in the heart of commercial Gatlinburg, attests to the imagination of a generous group, the cooperation of a chosen community, and the lasting good works of both. Like Qualla, like the CCC camps, like the park today, and, most of all, like the Walker place, Arrowmont signifies the profound beauty that can result when people practice a simple respect for their homeland. ”

“ Adair, an intent observer of Indian life, marveled at the Cherokees’ knowledge of nature’s medicines: “I do not remember to have seen or heard of an Indian dying by the bite of a snake, when out at war, or a hunting ... they, as well as all other Indian nations, have a great knowledge of specific virtues in simples: applying herbs and plants, on the most dangerous occasions, and seldom if ever, fail to effect a thorough cure, from the natural bush.... For my own part, I would prefer an old Indian before any surgeon whatsoever....” ”

“ While events of the early 19th century in the surrounding southland and the nation were moving inexorably toward conflict on bloody battlefields to decide issues which could not or would not be resolved in the political arena, people in the Great Smokies were pursuing their struggle to survive and adapt to their stern and splendid surroundings.
The early explorers, the long hunters, the initial homesteaders, the trailblazers and the groundbreakers—these had forever set a human seal upon the wilderness. Now it was the time of pioneer becoming mountaineer. ”

“ Seemingly endless ridges, forests, mountain streams, waterfalls, and wildlife attract hundreds of thousands of travelers each year to Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the Tennessee-North Carolina border. Many are drawn by a long procession of wildflowers and shrubs bursting into bloom in the spring and by the colorful foliage of the hardwoods in the fall. Thousands hike the park’s many trails, which range from short spurs to the 110 kilometers (70 miles) of the Appalachian Trail that runs through the park. ”

“ Perhaps no single section of the United States was as bitterly torn in its allegiance.
Tennessee and North Carolina had long held strong Union sentiments; but when Lincoln called for troops in the aftermath of the firing on Fort Sumter, the two states officially rallied to the Confederate cause. North Carolinians, who had been notably reluctant to leave the Union and who bristled at the injustices of “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight,” nonetheless sent more men to the Confederacy than any other state. ”

“ After being beaten by a band of masked men, Gatlin abandoned his claim to thousands of hectares that now lie within the park and departed forever from the place that was to perpetuate his name if not his memory.
The war’s severest hardships followed in the wake of the outliers, or the bushwhackers. These scavengers favored no cause. As the war dragged on, they ambushed and raided, stealing meat from the smokehouse, corn from the crib, and farm animals from barn and pasture. Scarcity and want became commonplace throughout the mountains. ”

“ The soldiers built 13 stockades in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama. Using these as base camps, they scattered throughout the countryside with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets. As they herded Indians back toward the forts, bands of roving outlaws burned the homes, stole the livestock, robbed the graves. Throughout the summer, a stifling drought settled over the hot, depleted Nation. By August, many of the captured Cherokees had succumbed to sickness or even death. ”

“ Real transition would come only with the upheavals of the succeeding decades, only as a result of America’s industrialization and two world wars and the arrival of a national park. Yet the beginning of a new century did inject one major new element into the lifestream of the Great Smoky Mountains: the lumber companies and their money.
The people who lived here had logged before. A man might operate a family enterprise along some hillside or in a low-lying cove, using a few strong-armed relatives or neighbors to help cut and move the choicest timber of the forest. ”

“ Behind Chapman’s professorial appearance—his wire-rimmed glasses and three-piece suits and unkempt hair—was a man who had been a colonel in World War I, a man who had resolved to make the dream of a national park into a reality. ”

“ The spacious Wonderland Park Hotel and the Appalachian Club at Elkmont, and a hunting lodge on Jake’s Creek graced the once forbidding mountainsides.
Undergirding this development was a growing cash base: peaches and chestnuts, pork and venison, wax and lard—translated into money—brought flour and sugar, yarn and needles, tools and ammunition. Yet in the midst of this new-found activity, many clung to their old habits. Children still found playtime fun by sliding down hills of pine needles and “riding” poplar saplings from treetop to treetop. ”

“ History is what the homecoming is about. The people of Cataloochee worship and sing and eat and celebrate because they are back. And being back, they remember. They walk up the narrow creeks, banked by thick tangles of rhododendron and dog-hobble, to the sites of old homesteads. ”

“ Many previous owners of park land had received lifetime leases that allowed them to live on in their dwellings, work their fields, and cut dead timber even while tourists streamed through the Smokies. Some of the lessees, such as those living near Gatlinburg, saw a new era coming, thrusting back the street-ends until motels and restaurants and craft shops pushed against an abandoned apple orchard or a 10-plot cemetery or a deserted backyard laced with lilacs. ”

“ The National Park Service has preserved some of the historic structures in Great Smoky Mountains National Park so that we, and future generations, can better understand how our forefathers lived. By walking through and closely examining their finely crafted—and crudely crafted—log houses, barns, and other farm buildings we gain a new respect for their diligence and perseverance. The hours spent hewing massive beams, preserving foods for winter use, and making clothes from scratch are nearly incomprehensible in our age of machines and computers. ”

“ Imaginative gatherings become not the exception but the rule: “Sometimes we take a group of children, divide them into members of a make-believe pioneer family, and take them up into a wilderness area, an area which is truly pristine, almost a virgin forest. And we let the kids imagine that they are this pioneer family, and that they are going to pick out a house site.” ”

“ The lumber companies had made the people of the Smokies more dependent on money for additional food, modern-day clothing, and new forms of recreation. World War I and the coming of the highways had instilled a restlessness in the mountain people, a yearning for new sights and different ways of living. Some began to echo the sentiments of one farmer who, after realizing meager returns for his hard labor on rocky fields, looked around him and concluded, “Well, I reckon a park is about all this land is fit for.”
Determined leadership overcame obstacles large and small. ”

“ The Indians’ maize, or corn, was the most essential crop on the typical Smokies farmstead. Besides being used as food for livestock, it was the staple for the pioneers themselves. With corn they made corn bread, hoe cakes, corn meal mush, and even a little moonshine. The harvested crop was kept dry in a corncrib until used.
As the pioneers became more settled and turned into farmers, they built barns to provide shelter for their cows, oxen, sheep, and horses, plus some of their farming equipment and hay. The large, log barn at the Oconaluftee Farmstead is unusual. ”

“ As hardy and practical as the physical existence of the pioneers had to be, there was another dimension to life. The pioneers were human beings. Often isolated, sometimes lonely, they yearned for the comforts of myth and superstition and religion—and the roads that led in and out. The Cherokees in their time had created such comforts; they had woven their myths and had laced the Smokies with a network of trails. ”

“ Five years later, the members built a log church at Smokemont on land donated by John Beck.
Nothing fostered these settlers’ early gropings toward community more than stories. Legends and tall tales, begun in family conversations and embellished by neighborly rumor, forged a bond, a unity of interest, a common history, in each valley and on each meandering branch. For example, in one western North Carolina tradition that would thrive well into the 20th century, Abraham Enloe was cited as the real father of Abraham Lincoln. ”

“ The residents of Cataloochee were incredulous. They were attached to this homeplace; they still referred to a short wagon ride as a trip and called a visit to the county seat a journey. But the park arrived, and the young families of the valley moved away, and then the older ones did the same. Gradually they came to understand that another sort of homeland had been established. And the strangers who now visit their valleys and creeks can look about and appreciate the heritage these settlers and their descendants left behind.
The old families still come back. ”