Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina and Tennessee

by United States. National Park Service

Nearby Attractions

To describe the many attractions near the Smokies would require an encyclopedic guidebook. Nearby are TVA’s “Great Lakes of the South,” Biltmore House and Gardens, large national forests, Oak Ridge’s American Museum of Science and Energy, and other features too numerous to mention. Here are just a few features often associated with a Smokies vacation.

The Blue Ridge Parkway. From the northeast the Blue Ridge Parkway makes a delightful highway approach to the Smokies on the North Carolina side. The parkway is administered by the National Park Service and connects Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It meticulously follows the southern Appalachians for 755 kilometers (469 miles). It is a roadway designed for motor recreation and so provides leisurely travel free of commercial development. All along it are trails and scenic viewpoints. In season, wildflowers and fall colors can be stupendous. Just before the parkway reaches the Smokies it enters the Balsam Mountains, from which you look directly across at the Smokies. Just after Soco Gap on the parkway you can turn almost due north onto a spur road into the national park’s Balsam Mountain Campground and its Heintooga Overlook area.

Several lakes created by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) dams provide open water recreation opportunities, including excellent bass fishing, adjacent to or near the park.

For a free map and folder detailing services, lodging and accommodations, and points of interest, write: Superintendent, Blue Ridge Parkway, 200 BB and T Building, One Pack Square, Asheville, North Carolina 28801.

The Gateway Cities. For many people a trip to the Smokies is not complete without taking in the sights of Pigeon Forge, Townsend, and/or Gatlinburg, Tennessee, or Bryson City or Cherokee, North Carolina. At either end of U.S. 441 these municipalities go all-out to serve the tourist trade. Restaurants and motels are major industries along with curio shops, art galleries, and the theme villages that characterize our American tourist scene.

The Blue Ridge Parkway has its southern terminus at the North Carolina entrance to the park. This is Craggy Gardens, near Milepost 364, famous for its Catawba rhododendron displays.

Taken together these surrounding municipalities offer most facilities and services you might need during your stay in the Smokies. Cameras and photographic supplies, groceries, pharmacies, local literature and guides, banks, and countless other services are available.

Cherokee Indian Heritage. The Cherokee Indian Reservation abuts the park boundary on the southeast. In Cherokee there are museums and shops where the art and crafts of these eastern woodlands Indians, thought to be of original Iroquoian stock, are displayed and offered for sale. Each year a play, “Unto These Hills,” is performed locally. It describes the Cherokee’s history and early encounters with Europeans. Most of these activities occur on the North Carolina side of the park.

Mountain Folkways and Crafts. Mountain ingenuity and the human bent for creativity gave rise to crafts characteristic of the southern mountains. These are kept alive in various outlets surrounding the Smokies. In Gatlinburg you can visit the famed Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, which has done so much to revive original handicraft arts and support the artists by marketing their work.

Three main types of basketry are made by Cherokees. Rivercane baskets are now relatively scarce because the once-abundant cane is itself scarce now. White oak baskets are more common. Baskets are also woven from honeysuckle. Above are exquisite examples of basketry by Carol S. Welch, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

The American Museum of Science and Technology at Oak Ridge National Laboratories provides a thoroughly modern contrast to the traditional folkways of the Smokies.

Armchair Explorations

Some Books You May Want to Read

The Great Smoky Mountains and their national park are both rich in lore, much of which has been collected and committed to print over the years. Your appreciation of a trip to these mountains can be greatly enhanced, both before and after, by reading accounts of the area’s history, natural history, and folklore. There are also field identification guides to nearly everything you see here, from rocks and flowers to spiders and mammals. And there are trail and hiking guidebooks full of good tips and advice on interesting trips, both day trips and overnights. Listed here are selected titles usually available for purchase at park visitor centers, or to be found in your public library. Many of these may also be purchased in bookstores in communities near the park. Several interesting and useful maps of the area are also available. For a more complete list of publications write to the Great Smoky Mountains Natural History Association, Gatlinburg, Tennessee 37738. This nonprofit association maintains a sales list of technical and other books about the Smokies as part of its efforts to enhance the interpretation of the park’s values to the public.

Brooks, Maurice. The Appalachians, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965.

Broome, Harvey. Out Under the Sky of the Great Smokies, The Greenbrier Press, 1975.

Campbell, Carlos. Birth of a National Park in the Great Smoky Mountains, The University of Tennessee Press, 1960.

Cantu, Rita. Great Smoky Mountains: The Story Behind the Scenery, KC Publications, 1979.

Dykeman, Wilma and Jim Stokely. At Home in the Smokies, National Park Service Handbook 125, 1978.

Frome, Michael. Strangers in High Places: The Story of the Great Smoky Mountains, The University of Tennessee Press, 1980.

Kephart, Horace. Our Southern Highlanders, The University of Tennessee Press, 1922.

Shields, Randolph. The Cades Cove Story, Great Smoky Mountains Natural History Association, 1977.

Tilden, Freeman. The National Parks, Alfred A. Knopf, 1968.