Gatlinburg And The Great Smokies - free ebook by Ernie Pyle

GATLINBURG And THE GREAT SMOKIES By Ernie Pyle

Ernie Pyle ONE OF HIS FAVORITE PHOTOS PRICE—FIFTY CENTS Printed In The Great Smokies THE MOUNTAIN PRESS Gatlinburg, Tennessee...

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Foreword

In the Fall of 1940, Ernie Pyle and “that girl” who rode with him (his wife, “Jerry”) came to Gatlinburg and Ernie wrote eleven columns for the Scripps-Howard Newspapers about the village of Gatlinburg, the native people and a trip he took to LeConte. With permission of the Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance and Wm. Sloane Associates Inc., Publishers, these columns are reproduced in this little booklet. They are good reading—by one of the truly great writers of our time. They are about things clo

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PASSED BY TIME

Centuries ago, white pioneers from England and Scotland came into these mountains and set up their homes. They were so isolated that our so-called progress largely passed them by. They grew up to be a little race distinct. There is no denying that a mountain man is different from a plains or city man. I can’t exactly tell you the difference, but there is something basically rugged in his character that would be nice to have within yourself. There are old men in these mountains who would feel emb

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PARK IS OVAL SHAPE

The Great Smokies Park is roughly 54 miles long and 19 miles wide at the widest point. It is oval shaped. Except for a few high, level pastures, it is tremendously rugged throughout its entirety. It has 16 peaks more than 6000 feet high. Vegetation is lush, clear to the top of the highest peak. There is no timberline in these mountains. Balsam and spruce grow thick in the upper regions. In summer the rainfall is almost tropical, and in winter heavy snows blanket the trees and slopes into a fairy

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BACK TO SLEEP

In preparation for this historic stroll I awoke at 7 a.m., yawned a couple of times, and went back to sleep for half an hour. Then I ate breakfast, read the morning paper, got those old gray pants out of the back of the car and, as a final gesture, put them on. Also I filled up the little chamois pack sack which That Girl made for my gallant walk through the Rockies last year from the United States to Canada. In this pack sack I put an extra sweater, four hankerchiefs (because I still have a col

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DISTANCES DECEPTIVE

At 12 o’clock sharp, I came around another bend and there ahead, across a valley stood a sharp precipice. They had told me that right behind this precipice lay the Le Conte Lodge. I stood a minute, and tried to judge how long it would take to get there. Distances in the mountains are very deceptive. Out West you can see a long way, hence an actual distance is much farther than it looks. I remember once, in the high Rockies, figuring it would take an hour to get to a certain ridge, but it actuall

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BEARS DON’T HIDE

But let me tell you about my walk up the mountain. On the Alum Cave trail, by which I came, there is no place where you walk along an actual precipice that drops off straight down for thousands of feet. But I can say that if you are up here, and should suddenly find yourself in desperate need of a precipice, there are some places that would serve as excellent substitutes. The first part of the trip, in the lower altitudes, is deep in a forest of trees and bushes. Rhododendron roots make a tangle

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STARES AT BEAUTY

After an hour and a half of walking, I had risen above the matted rhododendron vines, risen away from the bounding little rock-bedded mountain stream, risen to heights where the trail came out from among the trees and one could stand and look forever. And it was then I realized for the first time in my life, that there can be as much majesty and stirring beauty in Eastern mountains as in the Rockies. Many times on the trail I just stopped and stared and stared. I don’t know that I have ever seen

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WATCHED SQUIRRELS

Once, deep in the woods, I sat down on a rock to rest. It was quiet as the grave, and I had the feeling that I might almost have been the first man here. Suddenly I heard a rattling in the trees. It startled me at first, and then I saw a flash of movement, and realized it was a squirrel running down a tree trunk. I sat there real still. Soon there was another squirrel. And then another. They were odd little fellows—only half as big as the ordinary squirrel. Later I learned the mountain people ca

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LE CONTE LODGE, Great Smokies Park, Oct. 28, 1940—

Jack Huff is a mountain man. All of his 30-odd years have been spent here in the Smokies. And for 17 of those years he has been the entrepreneur at the top of Mt. Le Conte. He owns the Le Conte Lodge. Seven months of the year he feeds and beds and maybe entertains the hikers and horsemen who come up the trail. Jack Huff was just out of high school when he first came to the top of Mt. Le Conte, and he had visions of building a mountaintop tent camp for hiking vacationers. That was long before the

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BREAKFAST EXCELLENT

But the morning sun can do much for a man. Today was clear, and our breakfast was excellent, and we faced the prospect of our seven-mile return hike almost with eagerness. Since I like to walk alone, I started out ahead of my new friends. Twice during the first half of the downhill journey I stopped to rest. But after the second sitting, I never stopped again. The truth is, I was afraid to stop. That rheumatic knee of mine got worse and worse. Every downward step plunged it into a kettle of hot

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BID ADIEU

We bid each other a hikers’ adieu. My Cleveland friends started right home. Personally I’m not at all sure of them, even though Mr. Wilson is a rugged pioneer. If they do not return soon, I hope The Cleveland Press will send out an expedition. As for me—well, don’t you worry about me, folks, I’m safe and happy right here in bed with a hot pad around my knee. If anybody should care to hire me to pack something back up the mountain tomorrow, I’ll consider it for a million dollars. Not very serious

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FIVE FAMILIES DOMINATE

If you go up into the old graveyard on the hillside just back of town, you’ll find at least half the names on the gravestones divided among five families. Those families are—Ogle, Whaley, Maples, Reagan and Huff. The first four have been here for generations. The Huffs came 40 years ago. Four of these five families control Gatlinburg. They reap most of the profit, and they likewise take the responsibility and do the good deeds. There are four key business establishments in Gatlinburg. They are t

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HAVE SENSE OF HONESTY

The hotels are staffed by local mountain people, and they have pride and friendliness, clear down to the lowliest charwoman, that wouldn’t permit them to do a shoddy job. Tourists support almost every one of the 1300 people in Gatlinburg. Nobody is out of work who wants to work. Even the people out in the hills live off the tourists, through their weaving, basketry and woodwork. We have been in most of the “faddy” places and big tourist centers in America. In not one of them have we seen the plu

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OGLES ARE OLDEST

Ogle—They, I think, are probably the oldest. An Ogle started the first store here, back before the Civil War. The Ogles have ways been the merchants of the Smokies. Charlie Ogle is the head Ogle today, and he runs the general store that is one of the sights of Gatlinburg. As business grew they kept building on more additions. The store rambles and juts around all over the place. It has separate grocery, shoe, hardware, women’s-wear departments. You can buy things here you can’t get even in Knoxv

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WHALEYS OWN PLENTY

Whaley—The Whaleys too have been here a long time. Steve Whaley is the head man of the family. One son manages the hotel. Another son manages the tourist court. There is also a filling station in the family, and a saddle-horse concession, and they rent out nearly half a block of business buildings. I was talking to one of the Whaley boys of my pleasure in seeing the rich harvestings from the tourist crop kept in local hands. “Yes,” he said, “and I think we deserve it. We’ve always been poor and

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THE MAPLES FAMILY

Maples—There are two brothers of the older Maples generation. One is Squire I. L. Maples, who once owned a store (I don’t know how the Ogles allowed that) and was once postmaster. The other brother is David Crockett Maples. They are direct descendants of the famous Davy Crockett, who died a hero in the Texas Alamo. Davy Crockett Maples was a rural mail carrier. He carried the mail up into the higher Smokies, to Sugarlands, and the little way-back settlements. He is retired now. He hasn’t much to

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ANDY HUFF

Huff—Andy Huff is Gatlinburg’s most prominent man. He is the civic leader. He starts things, and finishes them. What he suggests, the other three usually do. Andy Huff came to Gatlinburg 39 years ago from Greene County, in Tennessee. He was a lumber man. He owned big saw-mills and cut timber. In the old days there wasn’t any place around here for a stranger to stay, so Andy Huff put up wayfarers at his house. But the lumber men who stayed with the Huffs liked it so well they’d bring friends. Tha

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UNCLE STEVE DRY AND DROLL

Uncle Steve is dry and droll. He’s dumb like a fox, and old fashioned like fluid drive. He’s about as skinny as I am, and his nose hangs over at the end like Puck’s. He sort of halfway grins when he talks, and his humor is so left-handed you don’t know half the time whether he’s joking or not. He loves to talk about being an ignorant hillbilly. It gets funnier and funnier as it gradually dawns on you how all-fired smart Uncle Steve really is. “I was educated at Bear Pen Holler University,” he sa

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POCKETS TIPS

Uncle Steve still is known to carry up a tourist’s bag occasionally, and pocket the tip. He doesn’t do it for a joke either. When the tourists later find out who he is, they’re rattled about having tipped him. It doesn’t rattle Uncle Steve though. They tell how he got appendicitis a few years ago and went to Knoxville to be operated on. At the hospital, they took down his financial history before operating. They asked what he did, and he said he worked for an old widow woman over at Gatlinburg w

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WENT TO SEE ANDY HUFF

One night he and I went up to see Andy Huff, who owns the big Mountain View Hotel. They are direct competitors, but they’re old friends too. We sat and gabbed with Andy for an hour or so, and then Andy drove us home. “How you standing the cooking down at the Riverside?” Andy Huff asked me. “Well the cooking’s all right,” I said, “but the owner kind of gets on my nerves.” “I don’t wonder,” said Andy Huff. “When you get all you can stand of it, check out and come down to my hotel.” So I said I gue

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CADES COVE

In a desperate effort, I presume, to make up for his outrageous misjudgment of my walking prowess, Assistant Chief Ranger Harold Edwards devoted his weekly day of rest to showing me some of the interior of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We drove over to Cade’s Cove in the far western end of the park. Cade’s Cove is several thousand acres of flat farm land set right down in the middle of the Smoky Mountain chain. Its floor is at 1800 feet elevation, and mountains ring it on every side.

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‘HEARTS-A-BUSTIN’ WITH LOVE’

Miss Laura Thornburgh lives in Gatlinburg and loves the Smokies so much she’s written a book about them. One evening she sent us over a beautiful bouquet of Hearts-a-Bustin’-with-Love. I’ll bet that one stops you. It is a local shrub, or hedge, or flower, or tree. I don’t know what you call it. Anyway it looks like Christmas holly at first glance. But when you get up close, you see it has been a round pod, and then it has broken open and out have come four red berries, just like lights on a chan

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A GOOD BEAR STORY

Copyright 1947 by Wm. Sloane Associates, Inc. Special permission to re-print this bear story was granted by Wm. Sloane Associates, Inc., of New York City, Publishers of “Home Country”, by Ernie Pyle, which book contains this story. Uncle Steve Cole lives on at his old home place, right in the park. He is a typical mountain man of the old school—a good mountain man, the kind who lives right and does right. I dropped in one afternoon to talk to him. Uncle Steve lit a fire, and sat down beside it a

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WILEY OAKLEY

The most famous man in the Smokies, as far as visitors are concerned, is Wiley Oakley. He is called “The Roamin’ Man of the Mountains.” He is 55, and all his life he has just wandered around through the Smokies. He is a natural woodsman, with a soul that sings in harmony with the birds and the trees and the trees and the clouds. His English is spectacular, and on many things he is as naive as a baby. But on other things he almost shocks you with his meticulous knowledge. He has a house in the hi

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SEES MUSEUM

One of the places a visitor to Gatlinburg must see is the Mountaineer Museum. This is a collection of some 2000 old-fashioned mountain articles, gathered by Edna Lynn Simms. Mrs. Simms came from Knoxville 24 years ago. She herself roamed the mountains long before the tourists came. She picked up articles, and lore, and the language of the hills. She has a bubbling enthusiasm for everything she sees or hears, an enthusiasm that has not begun to simmer down even after 24 years of mountain discover

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HEAD MAN

The head man of the Great Smokies Park is Ross Eakin. His men say he has one of the smoothest-working organizations in the Park Service. He has been in charge here from the start. Before that he was superintendent at Glacier, and at Grand Canyon. The Smokies have been fortunate in having the CCC and the WPA. Without them to do the work and do it cheaply, the Park Service would have been decades reaching its present advanced stage of improvements. They have built hundreds of miles of trail, and f

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DRIVEN AROUND

Both Assistant Chief Ranger Harold Edwards, on the Tennessee side, and Assistant Chief Ranger James Light, on the Carolina side, have driven us all around through the interior of the park on fire roads—gravel truck trails not open to the public. We enjoyed these trips, yet as far as I can see, the most spectacular views in the Park are available right from the cross-park highway, or from the trails out of Gatlinburg. A horse trail follows the backbone of the high mountain ridge from one end of t

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MANY MOVED

When the Smokies became Government land, a great many people were moved out. But also a great many were left in. Today there are around 400 native mountain people still living in the Tennessee half of the park, probably an equal number on the Carolina side. But it is hard for them. They are no longer masters of their own souls. His independence is a mountain man’s staff of life, and the reason he was here in the first place. Today a mountain man in the park dare not go hunting. He can’t even hav

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