Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Within the park is Cades Cove where in the late 1700’s the Cherokee settlement Tsiya’hi (Otter Place) existed. Cherokee claims to the Smoky Mountains ended with the Treaty of Calhoun in 1819 and white settlers soon arrived. By 1850, the settlers population grew to 671 and by late 1890’s had phone service.

Clingmans Dome
The highest mountain in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the highest in Tennessee, is Clingmans Dome at 6,643 feet.

Thomas Lanier Clingman, explorer, politician, and Civl War general, measured the mountains in the mid 1800's with three scientists. They used barometers, crude by today's standard, to measure atmospheric pressure at the mountains' summit. Comparing the pressure reading from the summit with readings taken at the same time at low elevations, they were able to use complicated mathematical formulas to calculate a mountain's elevation.
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Creek Bridge
Around the time William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066, the Cherokee Indians arrived in the Smoky Mountains. The Cherokee are believed to be a breakaway group of New England's Iroquois.

By the time European explorers came to the New World, seven clans of over 25,000 Cherokee ruled over what is now parts of eight states. The Cherokee name for the Smoky Mountains is shaconage, (shah-con-ah-jey) or "place of the blue smoke".
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Cantilever Barn
Large barns were common in Cades Cove because of the considerable number of livestock.

Having originated centuries ago in Europe, Cantilever constructed barns, a system of counterweighted overhanging beams, was common in east Tennessee and western North Carolina.

The loft could hold many tons of hay and fodder. The large overhang, without posts to get in the way of traffic, sheltered both animals and farm equipment.
Cantilever Barn Building Cades Cove Gary Ricketts gricketts gricketts.com Mountain Photography by Gary Ricketts Smoky Mountains Smugmug Tennessee Tree Woods Black and White Capturing History Through Photography
John P. Cable Mill—Cades Cove, Smoky Mountains
Frontiersmen knew how to harness water, one of the few sources of power available to them. Water power was used to power water wheels, which in turn powered the grist mill.

The mill was able to produce greater amounts of cornmeal than the inefficient small tub mills at home. In addition to that, the water driven mill could grind wheat into flour, a welcome addition. Now biscuits and bread were also available.

The form of payment was not always in hard coin, but some form of barter such as part of the resulting flour or meal.
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Blacksmith Shop
Transportation before the automobile was horse drawn, thus every community needed a blacksmith. Horse hoofs grow like human fingernails and need the same kind of trimming. To reset or replace a horseshoe, the blacksmith pulled the shoe off and trimmed the hoof with a metal file. The shoe was reset or a new one made that was then nailed into the horse's hoof.

Besides shoeing horses, the blacksmith fashioned all sorts of metal products needed for daily life: plows, nails, adzes, axes, chains, hinges, bolts, hammers, hoes, bits, hooks, broadaxes, kitchen knives and drawknives.
Blacksmith Shop Building Cades Cove Door Fence Gary Ricketts gricketts gricketts.com House Photography by Gary Ricketts Smoky Mountains Tennessee Tree Window Black and White Smugmug Capturing History Through Photography
Top of Old Smoky
A mist seems to always hover around the peaks and valleys of the Smoky Mountains. To the Cherokees the mountains were shaconage, (shah-con-ah-jey) or "place of the blue smoke".
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Abandoned
Settling in the Great Smoky Mountains in 1818 was no easy task, but John and Luraney Oliver did just that. With little more than seed, a few tools, one child and another on the way, the Olivers left Carter county Tennessee for a promise of a better life in Cades Cove, one hundred miles away.

Between clearing the land and building a cabin, they didn't get enough crops harvested before the cold and snow of winter set in. They would have surely starved that first winter if not for the kindness of the Cherokee who shared their food with the Olivers. And survive they did. When the Great Smoky Mountain National Park was formed in 1934, their offspring still lived in Cades Cove.
Abandoned Barn Buggy Building Cades Cove Gary Ricketts gricketts gricketts.com Mountain Photography by Gary Ricketts Smoky Mountains Smugmug Tennessee Tree Wagon Woods Black and White Capturing History Through Photography