Most people know the Smokies as the most visited national park in America, but it didn’t start as empty government land like the big parks out west. This park was pieced together from more than 6,600 individual owners, including thousands of small family farms and 18 large timber lots. It was a massive sanctuary created from scratch, and it still protects the log cabins, grist mills and churches of the people who lived here first.
On September 2, 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt stood at Newfound Gap to officially dedicate the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to the American people. Unlike Yellowstone or Yosemite, which were carved out of land the government already owned, this park required a $10 million fundraising campaign. Half that money came from the state legislatures and even school children who donated their pennies, while the other $5 million was a gift from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund.
The land itself carries the marks of those who were there before the park gates opened. Cades Cove, one of the most popular areas today, saw its first non-Indian settlers arrive between 1818 and 1821. Before them, the mountains were the ancestral home of the Cherokee people for over a thousand years. While many were forced west during the Trail of Tears, a small group remained in the mountains, eventually forming the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians who still live on the Qualla Boundary today.
The Smokies are known as the “Salamander Capital of the World”. There are more than 30 different species of salamanders living here, representing the majority of vertebrate animals by weight in the entire park. These amphibians are so diverse that scientists are still discovering new species in the high-elevation forests, which are remnants of the last ice age.
_____
Material used in this spread: National Geographic October 1952 edition.
Sources:
- National Park Service (NPS): Great Smoky Mountains History & Culture
- NPS: Amphibians of the Smokies
- North Carolina History Encyclopedia: The Great Smoky Mountains National Park
- Gatlinburg Inn: History of the National Park
- Backpacking Chef: FDR and the Great Smoky Mountains
Leave a Reply