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The
Great Smoky Mountains
have some deep
rich history dating back to the early 1700's. The first European
settlers found themselves amongst the Cherokee Indians. After adopting
much of the European culture, the majority of the Cherokee were forcibly
moved to land in Oklahoma, an event referred to as the "Trail of Tears".
The Cherokee that remained or made their way back to the Smoky Mountains, are the
ancestors of some that lived on the reservation. Now it is referred to
The Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Currently, most of them live in a
small city called Cherokee in Tennessee.
By the 1900's life
was much easier than it had been when the area was first settled.
People had lived off the land; cutting the trees down for building, farming,
hunting for food, and raising livestock. Many areas that had at one
time been forest were turned into pastures and/or cleared for towns.
By the
20th century things had changed again in the
Smoky Mountains. Agricultural lifestyles gave way to lumbering. Within a
span of about twenty years most people did not depend on
agriculture as their main stay - people were dependent upon
manufacturing, lumber and store bought items. Lumber and
logging boom towns sprang up all over the place, some of them
still in existence today: Elkmont, Proctor, Smokemont and
Tremont.
Much of the
beautiful forest landscape was being cleared and unless
something changed in a hurry, trees would become almost extinct
in what we now call The Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Intervention came - The Great Smoky Mountain National Park was
established in 1934. Only 20% of the forest remained and
was made the boundaries of the park. The people that lived
in the
park (about 1,200) moved out and left behind buildings such as
mills, schools and churches. Over 70 of these structures
still remain and are maintained by the national park,
making it the largest collection of historic log buildings in
the Eastern Tennessee and the USA.
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