Those attending a meeting March 6, 1928, when a $5 million gift from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial was announced, included (front from left) former Tennessee Gov. Ben W. Hooper, Willis P. Davis, E. E. Conner, David C. Chapman, Gov. Henry H. Horton, John Nolan, Knoxville Mayor James A. Fowler, (back from left) Kenneth Chorley, Arno B. Cammerer, Wiley Brownlee, J. M. Clark, Margaret Preston, Ben A. Morton, Frank Maloney, Cary Spence, and Russell Hanlon.
The vast holdings of Champion Fibre Company were at the very heart of the park, however, and the results of the company’s resistance to a national park were central to success or failure of the whole movement. Champion’s 36,400 hectares (90,000 acres) included upper Greenbrier, Mt. Guyot, Mt. LeConte, the Chimneys, and a side of Clingmans Dome, crowned by extensive forests of virgin spruce. This splendid domain was the cause of hot tempers, torrid accusations, rigid defenses, and a hard-fought condemnation lawsuit. In the end, however, on March 30, 1931, Champion Fibre agreed to sell for a total of $3 million, a sum which took on added appeal during the slump of the disastrous Depression.
Four days after this agreement, Horace Kephart died in an automobile accident near Cherokee, North Carolina. An 8-ton boulder was later brought from the hills above Smokemont to mark his grave in Bryson City.
Only a few years earlier Kephart had said:
“Here to-day is the last stand of primeval American forest at its best. If saved—and if saved at all it must be done at once—it will be a joy and a wonder to our people for all time. The nation is summoned by a solemn duty to preserve it.”
And it was, indeed, preserved. The Federal Government in 1933 contributed a final $2 million to the cause, establishing the figure of $12 million as the grand total of money raised for the park. On September 2, 1940, with land acquisition almost completed, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Great Smoky Mountains National Park “for the permanent enjoyment of the people.”
The park movement’s greatest victory, coming as it did at Kephart’s death, lent a special significance to his life. For his experience symbolized the good effects that a national park in the Great Smoky Mountains could create. These mountains and their people inspired him to write eloquently of their truth and endurance; his own health seemed to thrive in the rugged, elemental environment of the Smokies. Perhaps most important of all, he discovered here the impact of what it can mean to know a real home. Having found a home for himself, he labored tirelessly for a national park to give to his fellow countrymen the same opportunity for wonder and renewal and growth.
John Walker, the patriarch of a large self-reliant family, admires cherries he raised at his home in Little Greenbrier.
Jim Shelton