Great Smoky Mountains

Great Smoky Mountains National Park was not carved from empty land. When it was created, the mountains were home to thousands of people, and much of the forest belonged to timber companies. The park had to be bought, tract by tract. The Smokies run along the border between Tennessee and North Carolina. They are among the oldest mountains on earth, worn down and rounded over millions of years. The blue haze that gives them their name comes from the forest itself. The trees give off natural compounds that hang in the humid air.

For generations, families lived in the coves and hollows, farming small plots, raising cattle and hogs, and building their own cabins, barns and mills. Cades Cove in Tennessee was one of the largest of these communities. Around 1900, logging companies moved in with railroads and sawmills, and they cut much of the old forest within a few decades.

People in both states began pushing for a national park in the 1920s. Since the federal government did not buy land for parks then, the money had to be raised. Schoolchildren gave pennies, the 2 states put up funds, and John D. Rockefeller Jr. gave a large gift in his mother's name. The park was established in 1934, and Franklin Roosevelt dedicated it at Newfound Gap in 1940. Families were moved out, some willingly and some not.

Photographers helped make the case. George Masa, a Japanese-born photographer living in Asheville, spent years hiking and photographing the high country, and his pictures were used to show what was worth saving. Writers and mapmakers did the same.

Pictures of the Smokies tend to show 2 worlds. One is the high country of peaks, ridges and clouds. The other is the life in the coves, with log cabins, churches, mills and split-rail fences. When you look at a farm picture, notice how open the land is. Many of those fields have since grown back into forest, and the cabins left standing now sit in the woods.