The old-time visitors to Gatlinburg always stayed with Andy Huff at his Mountain View Hotel. But it is no longer an amateur affair. It is a huge place, sitting on a hillside, and they have served as many as 900 meals in a day there.
These four families are numerous with children, as mountain families usually are. As each family’s wealth grows, it is invested in some new business for one of the children.
Mountain children do go away, but somehow they always come back. The Huffs, the Ogles, the Whaleys, the Maples—each one has a generation in its 20s and 30s, and they are all in the family business up to their necks.
Almost without exception, they carry in their hearts the mountain man’s love of the land. And as long as that lasts, the “Big Four” of Gatlinburg will endure.
GATLINBURG, Tenn., Nov. 1, 1940—
Uncle Steve Whaley is probably the most engaging man in Gatlinburg. He has always lived here; always been a farmer and a trader.
He raised a big family here on the Little Pigeon River, in good mountain fashion. And then, in his middle years, the irresistible flood of human events rolled through the Great Smoky Mountains and tinged everybody’s life with change and Uncle Steve’s life changed too.
Today he is a power in these parts. He owns a big hotel, and lots of other things. He is a business magnate. He is the elder Morgan of his clan. His children are at the steering wheel, but I suspect that Uncle Steve drives relentlessly from the back seat.
We are staying in Uncle Steve’s hotel—the Riverside. It is managed by his son Dick. Uncle Steve just wanders around and about. Sometimes tourists stop out front and ask him if this is a good hotel. He’ll say, “Well, I’ve been staying here for quite a spell, and I like it all right.” He never tells them he owns it.
When Uncle Steve first was badgered into setting up a tourist camp, he swore to all the family that it would be the end of the Whaleys and all they’d slaved for and saved.