Appalachian History

Back in nineteen and thirteen me and my brother coon hunted lots [in the] Smokies. We had a dog named Track. He was a good one. We went to Flat Creek one evening, built up a camp fire, and stayed till two o’clock the next morning. We left and went in on Stillwell, and old [...]

“I’ve been a guide now for quite a few years, and I was borned and rared in the Great Smoky Mountains, at the foot of Mount Leconte, and when I was a boy, I didn’t do anything but hunt. One day I went out to, to shoot some turkey, and just as soon as I [...]

Today the former town of Elkmont, TN in the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a magnet for lovers of the synchronous firefly display. But in the early 1930s nature’s display was being outshone by political sparks flying in all directions. The previously bucolic summer haven for the socially prominent and wealthy [...]

On June 15, 1934 it all officially came together at long last. Congress’ act dated that day noted that an area of 400,000 acres within the minimum boundary of the park had been acquired, and therefore it established the Great Smoky Mountains as a national park (GSMNP) with sufficient land for administration, protection, and development. [...]

On April 2, 1931 Horace Kephart was killed in an automobile accident near Ela, NC along with fellow author Fiswoode Tarelton. Kephart (1862-1931) was a travel writer and librarian who published hundreds of articles during his lifetime, but became especially renowned for his classic works ‘Our Southern Highlanders’ and ‘Camping and Woodcraft.’ In one of [...]