Great Smoky Mountains National Park

TENNESSEE—NORTH CAROLINA OPEN ALL YEAR
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR · Douglas McKay, Secretary NATIONAL PARK SERVICE · Conrad L. Wirth, Director
Great Smoky Mountains NATIONAL PARK
The National Park System, of which this park is a unit, is dedicated to conserving the scenic, scientific, and historic heritage of the United States for the benefit and enjoyment of its people.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is located on the crest of the high divide which forms the boundary between Tennessee and North Carolina. This mountain range, representing one of the oldest uplands on earth, zigzags through the park from northeast to southwest for 71 miles, or 54 miles by air line. For 36 miles along its main crest the range maintains an altitude in excess of 5,000 feet. Sixteen of its peaks rise more than 6,000 feet. The deep blue haze rising from the valleys to the summits of the lofty peaks gives these mountains their name.
View from Heintooga Overlook.
Renowned for its splendid forests and containing a rich variety of plant life, the Great Smokies region has long been regarded by prominent botanists as the cradle of the present vegetation of eastern America.
Arnold Guyot, eminent scientist whose exploration of the Appalachian System began a century ago, was the first to describe the Great Smoky Mountains from personal observation. He wrote:
“Although the high peaks of the Smoky mountains are some fifty feet lower than the isolated and almost exceptional group of the Black mountains, by their number, their magnitude, the continuity and general elevation of the chains, and of the base upon which they repose, they are like a massive and high citadel which is really the culminating region of all the Appalachian System.”
Prior to the start of the 20th century, the area now comprising the park was little known to the outside world, although DeSoto is believed to have viewed the mountains. They were, and still are, the home of the Cherokees who now occupy the Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina, adjacent to the park on the south. The few white settlers were the rugged mountaineer descendants of colonists from England and Scotland who lived isolated and primitive lives. The Great Smokies region became better known during and subsequent to World War I when logging railroads of lumber companies penetrated some of its virgin forests. Still later, highways skirted the area and visitors were able to view its majestic peaks from a distance.