2023 southeast swing

Since the information was so good in the visitors center, we decided to split the information into two parts. In part 3 we start with the changes in the Smokies because of the growth of the roads. The logging industry that used the new roads started the changes that continued throughout the 1800s and early 1900s.

growth of roads

The Cherokee were the first to make trails through the Smokies.

European settlers later widened these footpaths to turn them into wagon roads to carry people and goods in and out of the Smokies. Many of these early paths are today’s roads.

Logging companies built railroad lines, and some were also turned into roads.

industry comes to the Smokies

As roads allowed people to move around more easily, the lumber industry saw an opportunity. By the late 1800s, most eastern forests had been logged out, but the demand for wood was growing. Logging companies looking for new sources of wood began to buy land in the Smokies.

Sawmills were not new here since streams were used to power small sawmills so local families could build frame houses and hardwood trees to make furniture. These farmers only cut what they needed at the time.

Industrial logging was so different. These companies cut entire forests and shipped the logs to distant markets. Lumber companies brought jobs to the Smokies and created a class of industrial wage-earners. Regular paychecks were needed by farm families during difficult times. The men were already used to hard physical labor, but the logging was dangerous.

The picture on the bottom left shows a commissary (in Tennessee) supported by the lumber company. It’s where workers could buy groceries and household supplies right where they lived.

During the boom years of logging in the Smokies, more and more companies came here, but many only lasted a few years and others went bankrupt. When all of the trees were cut, others moved out of the area and went west to find work.

Northern-based lumber companies brought large-scale industry to the Smokies and cleared huge areas of forest. Some built large sawmills to cut the trees into lumber.

Other companies harvested trees for telephone poles, while others, like tanneries and pulp and paper factories, used wood by-products.

The first commercial operations used rivers to transport logs. In the early 1900s, lumber companies ran railroad lines all over the Smokies (can you image how hard the men had to work to lay those lines?).

Railroads made it easier to carry logs from more remote parts of the mountains, and trains quickly replaced river drives.

Machines made logging more efficient. Geared locomotives brought trains up and down the steep (!) mountain slopes. Machines run by portable steam engines did not have to depend on water power.

Overhead skidders carried logs out of the forest on suspended cables instead of dragging them over rocks and cliffs. Log loaders moved logs onto flatbed railroad cars.

Who a man partnered with was so important.

“If you had a sharp saw and a good buddy on the other end of it, that was about as much fun as playing a fiddle. But if you had a bad working buddy, one who didn’t know what he was doing, he could get you killed in a minute.” Raymer Brackin, a Little River logger

those who lived here

In 1819, the Cherokee signed a treaty with the U.S. government and had to give up almost all of their land in the Smokies. However, some could stay.

About 60 families purchased and received land grands along the Oconaluftee River (the river runs north and south in the area where we spent time) and were also given citizenship. They became known as the Oconaluftee or Quallatown Cherokee.

In 1838, the Cherokee Nation was ordered to leave the rest of their land, and more than 60,000 died on the westward march known as the Trail of Tears that lasted until 1850.

The Quallatown Cherokee were not forced to leave because of the terms of the 1819 treaty.

In the late 1880s, farm families were facing so many problems. Some of their farming practices had left their soil worn out. A high birth rate meant more people lived here so it was harder to find good land to farm. Many left to look for jobs in textile mills and other industries.

The Civil War (1861-1865) introduce Northerners to the rich forests of the Smokies. After the war, some would come back and bring even more changes.

Thomas’s Legion (following picture) was a Confederate unit made up of Cherokee and whites from North Carolina. Some fought in Virginia and others in the mountains of North Carolina. Others hunted bushwhackers and guarded railroad bridges in east Tennessee. Who/what are bushwhackers? According to Wikipedia, “The ‘bushwhackers’ were Missourians who fled to the rugged backcountry and forests to live in hiding and resist the Union occupation of the border counties. They fought Union patrols, typically by ambush, in countless small skirmishes, and hit-and-run engagements.”

Slavery wasn’t common in the Smokies, and Tennessee was home to more than 7000 free blacks. However, both Tennessee and North Carolina seceded from the Union after the start of the Civil War.

Union sympathizers in both states added to the conflict in this area, and raiding parties crossed state borders. Soldiers and bushwhackers stole food and livestock and destroyed the fields. Farm families struggled to keep afloat. The bitterness lasted longer than the War. Most families began rebuilding, but some just left.

The Quallatown Cherokee organized their own tribal government in *1868*. In *1889*, they incorporated under the laws of NC as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

back to cut and run lumber industry

As loggers cut down one group of trees, they moved on to the next group. They “cut and run” through the Smokies

The landscape in 1910 was so different than what we see today. The Champion Fibre Company were logging the mountainside in front of the sign. Railroads crisscrossed the nearly cut-bare slope. Smoke from steam engines clouded the view, and the nose of the timber and rail operations echoed across the hills.

Champion was just one of the companies logging in the mountains. As a group they owned 85% of the land that later became Great Smokey Mountains National Park and actually logged about 65% of it. Wood from these slopes were used in a variety of ways: spruce went into WWI biplanes, hemlock bark helped to tan hides, and chestnut paneled staterooms in steamers sailing all over the world.

This cut and run attitude led to soil erosion that resulted in devastating forest fires. National park proponents used this destruction to encourage others to help buy the lands for the new park.

*left:* scars from skid roads and railroads on slopes
*middle:* loggers and families, usually lived in rail-portable “set-off houses”
*right:* 1910 map of lumber companies (in green)

moonshine

Prohibition was the law from 1919 to 1933, so no alcoholic beverages could legally be made, sold, or transported.

Many families made corn whiskey, or moonshine, as an easy way to transport corn for trade or sell. Until the 1870s, making whiskey was legal, but then the federal government added a tax and found it hard to enforce in the Smokies.

Without the tax, moonshine was cheaper to sell, and the Smokies because a popular place to make whiskey.

In the early 1900s, logging caused a boom in the moonshine industry because thousands of thirsty men were working here and had cash to spend. Logging also brought better road system to the mountains that the moonshiners used.

logging towns

Loggers had to live close to where they cut trees so local men found they had to leave their farms. Instead communities were built to house the workers.

Some loggers lived in “stringtowns,” where small houses arrived by flatbed train. When the logging was done in the area, the houses were moved to another part of the forest. Company towns housed other logging workers.

Logging towns opened up new ways to earn cash. Farm families sold what they had, from eggs to whiskey. Better roads made it easier for families to bring their goods to markets.

Loggers and farm families also had new ways to spend money through the Company stores. Better mail service made ordering from catalogs easier. The Smokies were starting to become connected to a regional and even a national economy.

trains brought tourists

As the trains took lumber to outside markets, they brought tourists in to see the Smokies. Entrepreneurs soon realize that if some of the trees were saved, more tourists would want to come visit–the first step toward making a national park in the East.

But getting the land for a national park was challenging because most of the land was already owned by the logging companies and hundreds of farm families.

A quote from someone who wanted to save the forests.

“A great shock it was to us to travel for days through a magnificent, truly virgin forest, where there was only the very faintest, scattered evidence man has ever been there before, and then step into the utter devastation the spruce logger leaves behind.” Paul Fink, *1919*

This building in Tennessee was a school during the week, a church on Sundays, and a movie theater on Saturdays. People knew it as the “House of Education, Salvation and Damnation.”

Railroads brought sightseers into the Smokies, and resorts were built in both Tennessee and North Carolina.

Local families rented rooms in their homes to tourists, acted as guides, and sold souvenirs. Traditional crafts were a good source of income.

Timber companies ran excursion cars on their rail lines. Thousands of people came to the Smokies by train in the 1910s and 1920s.

preparing for a park

To make the park, more than 1200 families were removed from their homes and communities were dissolved. Some happily took the money and left, some sold their land and paid rent to stay temporarily, and a few (mostly the elderly) were given lifetime leases.

The park would not exist for us if they hadn’t made their sacrifices.

While Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the park in 1926, President Calvin Coolidge had signed a bill in May of that year that established the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Shenandoah National Park.

“It is good and right that we should conserve these mountain heights of the old frontier for the benefit of the American people … But in this hour we have to safeguard a greater thing: the right of the people of this country to live as free men.” FDR

But the park had to be built after the land had been set apart. As president, FDR created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1933 to provide work for unemployed young men. Their jobs were designed to conserve or improve natural resources across the United States and get young men who had nothing to do because of the depression off the streets. The CCC enrolled hundreds of thousands of men to plant billions of trees. (Remember the Dust Bowl of the Depression? These trees provided barriers for the farms. We’ve seen the work done by the CCC in many locations across the U.S.)

Black enrollees were completely segregated, and none worked here in the Smokies. American natives were also enrolled in a separate division that hired hundreds of members of the Eastern Band of Cherokees to work on projects on tribal lands.

The CCC also built many things in the park: fire roads and towers, trails and bridges, park headquarters, and other buildings. The park today looks the way it does because of the work of the CCC.

The CCC men were organized into camps of 200 men who lived by army rules (and who were led by former military men). Withing the first month of the program, 5 CCC camps were set up in the park; eventually more than 20 CCC camps were here.

This map shows the locations of the CCC camps.

CCC enrollees lived temporarily in tent camps like Smokemont Camp NP-4 pictured here until workers could build actual buildings.

The CCC was a boon for unemployed young men across the nation during the Depression. In the Smokies alone, thousands of young men were given jobs (and salaries, a percentage of which were sent to their families.) Most of the men working here weren’t local, but some were.

Pictures show the rows of bunks (top) and a baseball team (bottom).

The CCC benefited the local economy since the men spent their money in local towns. The park brought tourists here even during the Depression. Were it not for the CCC, the park and its surroundings would probably look so different.

why the CCC closed down

WWII and our need for fighting men closed down the camps. The Smokies’ camps closed in 1942. (The CCC men who then fought during the war were strong, used to working hard as a team, and who were used to living away from their families. We really think that these men helped win the war because of the work in the CCC.)

One camp found a new purpose: it became a work camp for Conscientious Objectors (COs) to the war.

Most of them built trails, made signs, fought forest fires, and did other maintenance work in the park. Their work in the Smokies protected and even enhance the park during the war years.

protecting park resources

Once the park was established, managers had to decide what to do with all of the buildings. Many of the log cabins were restored to reflect a mostly 19th-century lifestyle. Most newer structures were torn down. The remaining buildings are part of the park’s heritage.