PHOTOS: Step back in time in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Knoxville, Tenn. (WATE) – As we come to the end of the year, take a look back in time at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Bringing a national park to the Smoky Mountains was no short process. The idea began in the late 1890s according to the National Park Service.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park through the years
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1937: Old Cable Mill at Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Photo via National Park Service) -
April 23, 1947: Hatchery and service building, with breeding ponds in the foreground, Fish Farming Station, Kephart Prong. Location: Great Smoky Mountains National Park (Photo via National Park Service) -
1950: Camp Heintooga. Arrive at the campsite in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Photo via National Park Service) -
The way it once was – park visitors in the museum featuring pioneering exhibits, in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Photo via National Park Service) -
1959: Building with visitors exiting it and a sign for Information and an arrow to the gate in Great Smokey Mountains National Park. (Photo via National Park Service) -
Native American standing outside a teepee in front of a store in Cherokee, North Carolina in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Photo via National Park Service) -
August 1973: Collection of royalties. Visitors around the Sugarland Visitor Center at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Photo via National Park Service) -
NPE employee on stage at Elkmont Campfire Talk in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Photo via National Park Service) -
Visitors camping in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Photo via National Park Service) -
1973: An NPS employee speaks to visitors on a bike ride before departing from the Sugarland Visitor Center in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Photo via National Park Service) -
Structure of Mission 66 in front of the mountains of Great Smoky National Park. (Photo via National Park Service) -
1975: NPS personnel push back a mountain in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Photo via National Park Service) -
NPS staff learn different knots. (Photo via National Park Service) -
1975: Helicopters take off in the Great Smoky National Park. (Photo via National Park Service) -
Person crushing sorghum in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Photo via National Park Service) -
Visitors standing on a lookout with a parking lot behind them at Newfound Gap in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Photo via National Park Service) -
Bear charging at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Copy of NPS Information Office file).
In May 1926, a bill was signed by President Calvin Coolidge that provided for the creation of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Shenandoah National Park. By 1928, enough money had been raised to purchase the park land. However, the purchase of the land was difficult.
The creation of the park forced hundreds of families to leave their homes. According to the National Park Service, some left of their own accord and others fought against it, but most families moved immediately.
Those who were too old or too ill to move were given lifetime leases. This includes the Walker sisters, who lived in the park until their deaths in the 1960s. Others were granted short-term leases. However, they could not chop wood, hunt and trap at will as they had before.
The park was officially opened in September 1940. President Franklin Roosevelt spoke from the Rockefeller Memorial at Newfound Gap, straddling the Tennessee-North Carolina border.
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Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on September 2, 1940, “for the continued enjoyment of the people.” (Photo via National Park Service) -
The CCC is working on the Rockefeller Memorial at Newfound Gap. (Photo via National Park Service)
To learn more about the history of the park, click here.
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