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Gatlinburg is a small mountain hamlet in Sevier County, Tennessee. It's a very busy little town that caters to and thrives on park visitation. The park as a whole draws well over ten million visitors each year and a significant part of that load is through Gatlinburg.
As busy as it is, log cabins and several of the town's more prominent structures have always lent themselves to an old world Bavarian Alpine look and feel to me and it's never lost that small town charm and appeal.
Old Tennessee State roads TN-71 and TN-73 merge a few miles north of the Smokys. These are now US-441 and US-321 respectively. From there they run South through Pigeon Forge into Gatlinburg. Downtown Gatlinburg is where they diverge again with US-321 heading Northeast to skirt the park and US-441 running Southwest into the Sugarlands park entrance. US-441 traverses the park into North Carolina as Newfound Gap.
Gatlinburg is pretty much dead center in Sevier County. But like most counties surrounding the Smokys, much of it within the park boundaries. As a result Gatlinburg is pretty much as far South as it can be and still be out of the park. It's East Tennessee hill country at its best and nestled right up to the Sugarlands entrance of the park.
The map at above (and its enlargement) is a 1941 basic road map produced by the National Park Service. Road and highway numbers may have changed depending on the age of the map one views. For more up-to-date road information, here is a rather current basic road map complete with all of the new road and highway numbers. There are two additional National Park Service maps of the Smokys on this page; The first is the full 1941 map. It's interesting because it shows many of the pre-park names. The other is a detailed and current 1997 map which has all of the new and improved info including the new park place names. The Library of Congress has high resolution originals of these maps. They're available at Maps of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Gatlinburg isn't a gorge, valley, or cove. It's not even a "depression" as it were. It just happens to be the shortest spot between a bunch of mountains. It's surrounded on all sides by high ridges: Looking around from the center of town, one would see Blue Ridge to the northeast, Cove Mountain to the west, Grapeyard Ridge to the east, and the Sugarland Mountain and Mt. LeConte massifs to the south. Gatlinburg's main watershed is the Little Pigeon River's West Fork. The West Fork flows from the headwaters at Mt. Collins for several miles before it finally joins with the Little Pigeon River in Sevierville.
Native Americans...
The Great Indian War Path,
also known as the Seneca Trail, is a centuries old footpath used by various
southern and northern Indian tribes to facilitate trade, and as the name would
imply, war. It runs from Philadelphia down the Shenandoah Valley to the
upper creeks and steams of the Tennessee River and Chattanooga on down to Creek
Indian territory in northern Georgia and Alabama.
By contrast, the Appalachian Trail, run by the Park Service, was "conceived" in 1921 and completed in 1937. But portions of it are much, much older. Early in the Revolutionary War, approximately 170 years before the advent of the A.T., Revolutionary War General Griffith Rutherford (1720-1805) tried to dismantle the alliance between the Cherokee and the British. He assembled 2500 troops went and went on a 300 mile trek destroying Cherokee villages along the way. The path he took became known as Rutherford's Trace. If one overlays a map of Rutherford's Trace onto a map of the A.T., it's amazing how may of the points coincide. The Question suddenly becomes, if he used it to find the indians, how many centuries had they been using it?
Both Great Indian War Path and Rutherford's Trace ran essentially north and south. Indian Gap Trail had been used for centuries as one of the east/west connectors between the two by the Cherokee and their Native American predecessors. The trail crosses over at Mount Collins in the Chimney Tops. The Cherokee called the Chimneys Duniskwalgunyi meaning "forked antler" referring to its resemblance to deer antlers. Anyway, from its crest in the Smokys at Mount Collins, Indian Gap Trail roughly tracks the West Fork of the Little Pigeon River into Tennessee and the banks of the Oconaluftee into North Carolina. The Cherokee would use the footpath to access the fertile hunting grounds of the forests and coves of the Smokys on both sides of the crest. Today, US-441 pretty much uses the same route except that it crosses New Found Gap, about 1.5 miles east of Indian Gap Trail. The trail can still be hiked but it's steep and isn't for the faint of heart where it crosses over.
William Ogle...
There seems to be little known about the early life and times of William Ogle
(1751-1803). There is family folklore and considerable conjecture, but
very little in the way of empirical support. Some say he was an Indian
trader and others say he was a preacher. Considering the times, he may
have been both. He declared himself to be a planter in court recorded
deeds in Rowan County, NC. There is also speculation that he was a
Revolutionary War veteran and this one is quite possible based on certain
events. One thing is certain though... William Ogle was a wanderer.
Picking up and moving a family in Colonial, Revolutionary, or post Revolutionary times was a tough chore indeed! Considering transportation and infrastructure, just getting to someplace new could be a real struggle, especially if one had already acquired things that needed to be moved. Often, one had to build one's shelter upon getting there because there was no existing housing. No, once someone left home and landed somewhere, they tended to homestead for life. On occasion, folks might pick up and do it again, but the promise of a better future had to be pretty significant to lure them into it. And yet, William Ogle did it several times. This is the one thing that does have support through court documents and census reports.
We know that he had family in Virginia but we aren't sure if he originally came from there or if there was just a familial connection. Here's a time line for what we do know:
In the years following the Revolutionary War North Carolina had issued land grants to war veterans. Folklore dictates that in late 1801 or early 1802 William traveled northwest across the Smokys looking for a place to make good on his war veteran land grant. Upon arriving in the flats of the West Fork of the Little Pigeon, William Ogle declared it to be "the land of paradise" and chose to stake his land grant claim and settle the area. Giving credence to folklore that Ogle was an Indian trader, with the help of the Cherokee, he began the process of cutting, hewing, and notching logs. Building cabins with green timber would have created considerable problems down the road and commercially kiln dried timber wouldn't have been available. So, while the logs were air drying, Ogle returned home to grow one final crop for supplies, gather his family, and return to build his cabin the following year.
Unfortunately, during the early part of 1803, epidemic disease believed to be Malaria swept through the South Carolina low country. Sometime between the date of his will on Feb. 26, 1803 and the date of probate on Mar. 5, 1803, William Ogle succumbed and passed away.
White Oak Flats...
Gatlinburg was first named White Oak Flats for the abundant native white oak
trees covering the landscape. Exactly who gave it the name or when it
was first called White Oak Flats isn't really known. It kept the name
until just prior to the Civil War. Anyway...
Most of the original settlers in and around the Smokys were English, Scots, Irish, and Scots-Irish first generation immigrants or of that ancestry. The came filtering in from North and South Carolina for the most part. And once they got there, there were a couple of ways one could get land... One way was to exorcise squatter's rights. People would move onto the land, build cabins, farm and work it the way they saw fit, and finally file for ownership under seizure and occupancy laws. If one was a veteran of the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812, the other way was to be given land grants for military service. Most of the settlers that went west of the ridge into Tennessee fit into one of those two categories.
In his will, William bequeathed the majority of his land to his boys but willed a "child's share" to his widow, Martha Jane (née Huskey) Ogle (1756-1827). Actual events get a little fuzzy here... Some say that Martha Ogle packed up her seven kids and moved back to Virginia where she had a better family support system but there is also evidence that indicates she stayed in Edgefield, S.C. and her brother moved down. Whether it was from South Carolina or Virginia, no one will ever really know, nor will anyone ever know if it was to collect on his war service land grants, honor William's wishes, or if it was the allure of his depiction of the area that drove her to move. Regardless, she moved.
Sometime between 1804 and 1806, Martha Ogle with her seven children and her brother Peter Huskey (1758-1818) with six of his children picked up their belongings and moved to the flats. Legend has it that they found William Ogle's hewn logs and built the first cabin with them where Baskins Creek merges with the Little Pigeon River. Indians had hunted in the flats for centuries and it's generally believed that Europeans had trapped in the area for some time, but it's widely accepted that the Ogle and Huskey clans are the first Anglo settlers in the area. Several of the Ogle and Huskey children were already married when they moved to the area and settled the flats, and a couple of names stick out. In particular are those of James and Rebecca (née Ogle) McCarter. These were Martha's son-in-law and daughter.
Most of the names that we historically link with Gatlinburg also fit into one of these two groups. We'll never know for sure which group some of them fit into, but we know they filtered in between the time the Ogle's, Huskey's, and McCarter's got there and the couple of decades that followed. Hot on the heels of the Ogle and Huskey families were the Reagan's and Whaley's. Other family names that took up residence along the hollows, streams, and mountain sides during the time and in the area included: Trentham, Ownby, Maples, Oakley, Clabo, Cardwell, Bohannon, and King.
Most of these people were religious folks. Martha Ogle spearheaded the effort to get a church built in the area and the church was the first "public" building erected. Having been settled so recently, there's speculation that there was no need before, but in 1830, the White Oak Flats Cemetery was established. It would be five more years before they would get their church. And even though most of the settlers were Presbyterian, Baptist missionaries in the area convinced them to create a Baptist church first. Thus, in 1835, the White Oak Flats Baptist Church was established. Many of the original settlers prayed here and were buried here. Many of the these original settlers family names are still present in Gatlinburg.
From the time the Ogle and Huskey clans settled the area, White Oak Flats was a community on its own. The folks were self reliant and the town was self sufficient. No one got rich, but they survived. Most of them got by on subsistence farming. And the town stayed that way for close to a century. They survived the War of 1812 and the Civil War. Their life model didn't change until Logging came to the mountains.
Gatlinburg...
One of the relative late comers to White Oak Flats was Radford C. Gatlin
(1798-1880). He showed up around 1854 or 1855. The more one finds
out about Gatlin, the more superlatives like arrogant, self-righteous, petty,
overbearing, pompous, and insolent come to mind. He was well educated
and even taught school for a while. He was also a business man and had
moderate success. He fancied himself a Preacher of the Gospel and a pious
man, but that was debatable as we will see shortly. Most of the folks
in the flats didn't seem to care for him too much. By the time he left,
most of his neighbors bid good riddance.
Gatlin was born in Georgia in 1798 and there's not a lot of information out there about his youth or his early adulthood. White Oak Flats is in what is now Sevier County, but Gatlin first shows up in Jefferson County, Sevier County's neighbor. Deed records show he purchased 70 acres of land in 1833, 55 more in 1836, and 100 acres in 1838, but he may have been in the area as early as 1825.
Gatlin often bickered and squabbled with neighbors and wound up involved in quite a few petty lawsuits. He lost most of them. His sense of law and the rule of law were often at odds, but it didn't stop him from trying to get his way in court. It was time for him to get out of town. Gatlin sold his land in Jefferson County and he and his wife, Elizabeth, made their way into Sevier County. Gatlin in Jefferson County was a prelude of things to come and a bad omen for his future neighbors.
The moved into the Paw Paw Hollow community near Wears Valley. Church minutes of the Paw Paw Hollow Baptist Church indicate that shortly after a revival in September 1841, Radford and Elizabeth Gatlin became church members. Within a year, he had been ordained as a minister.
Gatlin was apparently slow to get the Word of the Lord. Very soon thereafter, he became the central figure in the breakup of the Paw Paw Hollow church. He wrote a letter to the local Baptist Association condemning the Tennessee Baptist Convention for setting up a mission program in Jonesborgh in 1842. His position was that both the Pro-missionary and the Anti-missionary Baptists should be allowed fellowship in the church. The Baptist Association thought this to be "offensive" and sent a committee of leaders to look into the trouble at Paw Paw Hollow. Gatlin wouldn't let them in the church. They said he was "rude and uncivil." Two days later, the Association's committee tried again and met with the same fate. They, along with some of the church congregation, met in a shed on the church grounds and signed "Articles of Complaint against Radford Gatlin" and voted "forth with to exclude Gatlin." The kicked him out of the church.
Personal testimony attributed to Mrs.Jane Hamilton Thornburgh indicate that he was a teacher at an "old field" school and a part time Baptist preacher. She substantiates the story by telling us that they:
"fought for half a day in the Paw Paw Hollow Church yard." (Sharp)
The committee's report seems to corroborate this story. Mrs. Thornburgh further remembers that Gatlin could use somewhat colorful language if the mood struck him. He did so on one hot summer day when he returned home and found his cow had gotten out of the pasture. The following exchange was said to have taken place (Sharp):
Radford (aggravated): "Elizabeth, you damned old hellion, head that cow off."
Elizabeth (tersely): "What did you say, Mr. Gatlin?"
Radford (suckin' up): "I said, Mrs. Gatlin, will you please head that cow off?"
Time to get out of town... again! In July of 1854, Gatlin sold his property for $1,000.00 and he and Elizabeth moved to White Oak Flats. In September, he purchased 50 acres from Elisha Ogle for $30.00. He then entered some "shady" land grant deeds in to Tennessee records. His claim was for 5000 acres, but the survey points recorded by the methods of the time would have been for over 100,000 acres and would have included a major part of Sevier County including all of White Oak Flats, and extending across the Smokys into North Carolina. Many of the lands in his grant had already been settled by locals, and they may have thought that Gatlin intended to dispossess them of their property. In a suit by his heirs in 1931, the grant was rendered invalid by the Sevier County circuit court. Moving on...
Opening a general store in 1850, Noah Ogle became White Oak Flats first merchant of record. When Gatlin got there in 1854, he thought the population could support a second store and he became the second merchant of record. In 1856, the community was chartered to get a post office and Richard Reagan was to become the first Post Master of White Oak Flats. More on this in a moment.
There were several reasons that Gatlin wasn't well liked in White Oak Flats. He was controversial and arrogant about it. He was a self proclaimed minister and thought so highly of himself in this respect that he tried to establish his own "Gatlinite" Baptist Church, and yet, he didn't live the Word among others that did. He was a slave owner and secessionist advocating the Confederate cause in the midst of a predominantly pro Union mindset. Land grants he filed put him in a position to displace people that were already there. He was a democrat among republicans. Every fight Radford Gatlin picked with the community in which he lived seemed to get bigger and bolder.
The fight that he picked here was with one of the oldest settlers, Thomas J. Ogle (1784-1862), one of Martha and William Ogle's sons. He was well known, well established, well respected, and by now, well on in years. This was a mountain feud in every sense of the word, and this over a road. In January 1857, Gatlin petitioned the court to reroute the main road through the community. The road alteration he proposed would run down two sides of his property and presumably enhance traffic flow to his store. Nothing got done so he petitioned the court again in April 1858. Little is known about any exchanges that caused the tempers to flare, but Radford and Elizabeth Gatlin were both indicted by the Sevier County Grand Jury for assault and battery "upon the Body of Thomas Ogle, Sr." The fight occurred on June 10, 1857. Gatlin was tried and convicted in November 1958 and fined $1.00. He was granted a new trial in November of 1959. Again, he was convicted again and fined $1.00. Rather than pay it, he appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court which upheld his conviction. In March 1859, Elizabeth Gatlin was also tried, convicted, and fined $1.00. At her trial, Thomas Ogle testified that
"Elizabeth Gatlin struck him in the hand with a stick that she had been striking the cattle of Witness, but when he came up she hit him in the hand with a pine stick, that he caught hold of Said stick and jerked her on the ground and that Defendant was striking at Ogle Several times with the stick and She hit him in the hand as he caught stick." (Sharp)
Not long after the fight, Gatlin's barn and stable burned to the ground. His horse was lost in the fire, and he had some cattle killed in the woods close to his home. Gatlin filed arson charges against Levi Ogle and Thomas Ogle, Sr. When the county returned no indictments, Gatlin went to a justice of the peace and swore out peace warrants against Thomas Ogle Senr., William Ogle known as the son of said Thomas Ogle Senr., Isaac Ogle Senr., Elisha Ogle, and Aaron Onsley. Gatlin swore under oath that he was afraid that these men would
"burn his... dwelling house and other buildings and perhaps destroy the lives of him... and his wife or that they will procure or cause the same to be done by putting into circulation false reports, by making misrepresentations respecting said deponent and wife, by suppressing the evidence of the late burning of Said deponent's stables, barn and property, thereby giving encouragement and inciting incendiaries to further acts of felony on the buildings and property of said deponent." (Sharp)
Trial of the defendants were held in December 1857 before justice of the peace, John T. Havis who summarily dismissed the case as being "frivolous" and Gatlin was charged court costs. Gatlin appealed to the Sevier County Circuit Court citing lack of witnesses, illness of process server Constable C.A. Clementson, and high court costs which were about $30.00. The Circuit Court dismissed his case, and again, Gatlin appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court. And again, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court. Finally, Gatlin sought court redress of his grievances against the whole White Oak Flats population. As usual, he lost. Gatlin paid his wife's $1.00 fine, but skipped town before paying his own. Gatlin's bondsmen wound up paying his fine and court costs in July 1861 after he had left the county.
As for why he left town, many rumors persist. One rumor is that it was because of the ill will between him and the whole of the rest of town over his advocacy of the Confederacy. This doesn't seem very likely. Even though most of the population was pro union, this community was no different in that the Civil War ripped it apart too... there were other Confederate sympathizers. Another one is that if he would just leave, they would name the town after him. This, too, doesn't seem very plausible. These were large, tight knit family clans that he tried to manipulate and take advantage of over and over again. There would have been no reason to indulge him this way. One legend that does seem likely is that he truly feared for his life after his barn and stable were burned down and he decided that leaving was a better alternative. It's also rumored that after he tried to have them arrested that several of them wearing masks caught him and beat the poo out of him and told him to leave or they would kill him. I suspect the truth is somewhere between these last two.
As for how White Oak Flats became the namesake of Radford C. Gatlin, this is the stuff of myth and legend, and there are many. Anyone that would have known the truth and could have told the tale has long since passed away. There are several narratives that could be plausible and all of them are variations of a theme that center around the post office. One legend is that Gatlin knew that petitions had been filed and lobbied for it to be located in his store to increase business. Another is that when Richard Reagan was allowed space in Gatlin's store for the post office, he was so grateful that he named the post stop Gatlinburg. Still, another variation of this tale is that Gatlin conceded the space, but only on the condition that his name was part of the post stop. Whether it was the gratitude of one man or the arrogance of the other, White Oak Flats became Gatlinburg because of some variation of this story. Gatlin opened his store in 1854 and the post stop in either 1854 or 1855. National Archives record that in January 1856, there would be a post office established in Gatlinburg, Sevier County, Tennessee. All of this happened long before either the road feud or his views on the Civil War would have put him at odds with the community, both of which are suppositions for his leaving.
Incidentally, in April 1858, the postal service established a route between Casher's Valley, S.C. and Sevierville, TN. Daniel W. Reagan and J.S. Conner were contracted as postal carriers to make the 176 mile run once a week for $309.00 a year.
The country was on the cusp of Civil War and on June 8, 1861, Tennessee did indeed become the last state to secede. The vote to do so came out of the central and western part of the state, as eastern Tennessee was overwhelmingly pro Union. But, for the meantime, Gatlinburg was rid of the biggest thorn in its hiney, Radford Gatlin. I'm sure that if Radford Gatlin had been born a century later, he would have been some sort of nagging leach on society, perhaps a personal injury attorney.
Civil War...
Life went on as it had for decades in Gatlinburg. Gatlinburg was still
fairly isolated and got by on subsistence farming as a self sustaining community.
The Civil War didn't really change those circumstances very much. Of
course, it was a significant disruption and presented its historical hardships
such as family losses, raids by both sides, and occupation, but it didn't change
the requirements of day to day life. The people here were, for the most
part, pro Union and sentiment aside, like most Smoky Mountain communities,
they tried to remain neutral. But they still had to get by, and they had
to do most of it on their own. The community was actually doing pretty
well staying out of the ruckus, but one particular event did transpire that got
them caught up in it...
In 1837, Ephraim Mingus, Robert Collins, and George W. Hayes of Oconaluftee, N.C. applied to the Sevier County Land Office for a 50 acre land grant. The grant would include Alum Cave and its mineral salt deposits. The grant never happened, but in December 1838, the state sold them the tract of land and they formed the Epsom Salts Manufacturing Company. The minerals mined on the site were saltpeter, Epsom salt, copperas, alum, and magnesia, but all of the easily obtained minerals were depleted by the mid 1840s. However, saltpeter was in very short supply during the war and a key ingredient in the production of gun powder. Even though the easy pickin's were gone, the Confederacy opened the mines back up. Confederate Colonel William H. Thomas (1805-1893) seized and occupied Gatlinburg and built a fort on Burg Hill in order to protect the mines at Alum Cave. Union troops from Knoxville and Sevierville were dispatched to extricate Thomas' forces. Lucinda Oakley Ogle, whose grandfather witnessed the battle, recalled her grandfather's memories;
"... he told me about when he was a sixteen year old boy during the Civil War and would hide under a big cliff on Turkey Nest Ridge and watch the Blue Coats ride their horses around the graveyard hill shooting their cannon toward Burg Hill where the Grey Coats had a fort and would ride their horses around the Burg Hill..."
Thomas retreated back across the Smokys into North Carolina. Gatlinburg had to endure continued raids from both side, but Thomas being forced back into N.C. had a couple of significant impacts: First, it freed Gatlinburg from Confederate occupation. In an already pro Union area, this must have furthered the sentiment. Second, and more important, the Confederacy lost an important production site for one of the key ingredients for making gun powder. Gatlinburg got through the war, things settled back down, and life seemed to return to normal for several years... until logging came to Appalachia.
Logging...
Like the rest of the Smokys, Gatlinburg got hit by logging. The lions
share of logging efforts in the region were a few miles west in Tuckaleechee
Cove (modern day
Townsend)
by the Little River Lumber Company, but Gatlinburg didn't get away unscathed.
By the 1890s, much of the lowland hardwoods had been harvested and the resources
depleted. The industry pushed into the mountain highlands, and Appalachia
specifically, with its seemingly endless supply of high quality mountain
hardwoods.
The industry officially hit Gatlinburg in 1900 when Andrew Jackson Huff (1878-1949) opened a sawmill. Huff mainly harvested and milled lumber from the Sugarlands which is now part of the Park. The Sugarlands were so named because of the predominance of sugar (hard) maples in the area, but there were also an abundance of American chestnuts. Of course, lumber is the bread and butter of any sawmill, but Huff also made money selling chestnut bark to leather tannaries for the tanning process. During the logging years, local residents would often supplement their incomes by hiring out rooms for rent to loggers and logging company officials. This idea wasn't lost on Huff. To capture some of that business and supplement his own income, Huff opened Gatlinburg's first hotel in 1916. As Gatlinburg transitioned from logging and farming to a service community in support of the park, this helped Huff maintain an income for himself.
One of the local businesses on the periphery of Huff's sawmill was that of the E.L. Reagan Furniture Company. It was started in 1910 by Elijah Lawson Reagan. Operating into the beginning of the 21st century, it was believed to be the oldest continuously operated business of any kind in Gatlinburg. Reagan began as a handtool artisan and stayed with it for over a decade, but in the 1920s, he built a water wheel with a generator on the Roaring Fork for powertool use. Reagan furnished power to his neighbors until power was brought in by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Since Reagan passed away in 1968, two more generations have owned and operated the company and produced outstanding furniture in the proud tradition of E.L. Reagan. Sadly, as of this writing, lack of sales have reduced the company to a part time endeavor and threatens their existence. If you want to get something while the gettin' is good, you can contact them through Poplar Ridge Log Cabins.
Pi Beta Phi and the Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts...
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Appalachian region of eastern Tennessee
was still a very isolated, very rural area. Education was basically
reduced to learning the things one needed to do to survive from day to day.
There was no formal education and there were no public schools in the area.
In 1910 a convention of the Pi Beta Phi
Fraternity decided that as part of their philanthropic out reach, they wanted to
celebrate their 50th anniversary and pay tribute to their founders by providing
education opportunities to an area where no schools were otherwise available.
The region they chose was the Appalachian region of Tennessee. After an
audit of the area and careful consideration, the community they found to be
most in need was Gatlinburg.
So, in 1912, E. E. Ogle sold 35 acres and in March of that year, the Settlement School opened in an unused church building. The school's initial charter was to provide basic education to children and health care to the rural area, but many of the residents were skeptical and wary of the school. The original enrollment was only 13 students but grew quickly to 33. The following year it grew to 134. Before long, the school had proven its goodwill and it expanded its charter and began offering vocational curricula in arts and crafts. These weren't arts and crafts in the finger paint and arts fair mold, but rather the "Arts & Crafts" movement which was in full swing in America at the time. The schools intent was to improve certain skills needed in the area and to preserve and promote the craft traditions that were already established. Keep in mind that most of the locals were primarily subsistence farmers. In addition to being farmers, they were blacksmiths for the broken plow shear, carpenters for the broken wagon, and wheelwrights for the broken wagon wheels. They were jacks of all trades but typically masters of none. They had to be crafty and self sufficient but that often meant that they didn't have the time to become truly proficient at any one skill, let alone all of them. The vocational training given by the Settlement School not only gave those coming of age a way to make a living, but also gave a way for adults to up their standards of workmanship and increase their skill sets, as well as preserve and promote their way of life.
The Settlement School endured the challenges and enjoyed success in all of its endeavors. In 1921, the school bought 35 additional acres and expanded its operation. By 1926, the school started the Arrow Craft Shop to market the growing weaving, basketry, and furniture products made by the school to the growing tourism traffic. The also sold the products to the Pi Phi alumni. The proceeds were funneled back into the school. Then, in 1945, they acquired an additional 35 acres and in a joint venture with the Department of Craft and Interior Design at the University of Tennessee began the Craft Work Shop. This summer experiment was successful beyond anyone's expectations and continues today. Now, it's one of the oldest independent nonprofit arts and crafts schools in the country. It is now known as the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. It is world renowned and runs all year long. .
Gatlinburg and the National Park...
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For those more interested in history, some things to see and do around town are:
For those that are a little more adventurous, try these out:
"Gatlinburg Chamber of Commerce." and linked articles. Gatlinburg Chamber of Commerce. Jun 2009.
<http://www.gatlinburg.com/chamber/>.
(03 Oct. 2009).
"Gatlinburg, TN." and linked articles. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Oct. 2009.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatlinburg,_Tennessee>.
(08 Oct. 2009).
"Gatlinburg, TN History and Culture." and linked articles. Gatlinburg Chamber - Things To Do. 2009.
<http://www.gatlinburg.com/things-to-do/culture-history/>.
(09 Oct. 2009).
"Huskey-Ogle Ancestor Archive." and linked articles. Eli & Julia Ogle Huskey Website. 2009.
<http://huskey-ogle-family.tripod.com/ancestorarchives/>.
(12 Oct. 2009).
"Native American Trails." and linked articles. Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture. 2002.
<http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery.php?EntryID=T106>.
(09 Oct. 2009).
"Smoky Mountain Ancestral Quest." and linked articles. SmokyKin.com. 2007.
<William Ogle>.
<Martha Ogle>.
<Peter Huskey>.
(09 Oct. 2009).
"Rutherford Trace." and linked articles. Learn NC. Oct. 2006.
<http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/4298>.
<Rutherford Trace Map>.
(08 Oct. 2009).
Sharp, J. A. Radford Gatlin: Gatlinburg's First Tourist
<http://genealogytrails.com/tenn/sevier/sharp/Gatlinburg.htm>.
"Welcome to Gatlinburg." and linked articles. Gatlinburg Visitors and Convention Bureau. 2009.
<http://www.gatlinburg.com>.
(03 Oct. 2009).
