Pigeon Forge, Tennessee

During our October 2018 visit to Gatlinburg, we took the time to also visit Pigeon Forge, a mountain resort city 7 miles north of Gatlinburg and 5 miles north of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Pigeon Forge is a tourist destination that caters primarily to Southern culture and country music fans. The city’s attractions include Dollywood (Dolly Parton’s Appalachian-themed park, water park, and museum), numerous gift shops, outlet malls, amusement rides, and musical theaters such as the Smokey Mountain Opry.

Named for an iron forge built around 1820 along the Little Pigeon River, Pigeon Forge has come a long way from its humble beginnings as an isolated mountain hamlet with no major roads, bridges a rarity, and the nearest railroad station 7 miles away in Sevierville. With the advent of National Park in 1934, improvements to the freeways, and the need to accommodate the tourism industry beyond Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge became a target for expansion.

In 1982, hoping to capitalize on the publicity generated by the Knoxville World’s Fair, Pigeon Forge initiated an aggressive economic plan that centered around theme parks, outlet malls, and live music venues. Although the commercial boom in Pigeon Forge vastly increased the town’s revenue, it had several undesirable effects. As land value increased, many farmers could no longer afford the accompanying high property taxes and were forced to sell their land. The high cost of living in Pigeon Forge is difficult to offset with the low wage jobs that accompany the tourist industry.

Although we didn’t go into Dollywood, or any of the other major attractions, we spent a couple of hours walking through the town and marveling at the elaborate constructs of this overtly tourist-themed town. 

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Visiting, hiking, and driving through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was one of the highlights of our time in Gatlinburg, and our overall visit to Tennessee. This park is the most visited national park in the United States with over 11.3 million recreational visitors in 2016. After a couple of days spent in the park, it was easy to see why it is so popular. The park covers 522,419 acres, making it one of the largest protected areas in the eastern United States.

Elevations in the park range from 875 feet to 6,643 feet at the summit of Clingmans Dome. With 850 miles of trails and unpaved roads in the park for hiking, including 70 miles of the Appalachian Trail that passes through the center of the park on its route from Maine to Georgia, we had no trouble finding hikes that suited us.

We hiked to the Little Greenbrier School, a former schoolhouse and church in the ghost town of Little Greenbrier built in 1882 and in use until 1936. Thirty-nine teachers would teach at the school until it’s closure in 1936, and some of the students would make a 9-mile daily journey to attend. On Sundays the school served as a church for the local Baptist congregation.

We hiked to the Walker Sisters Place, a homestead that belonged to five never-married sisters who became legends due to their adherence to a traditional way of living. After World War I, while nearby mountain communities began to modernize, the Walker Sisters clung to the old way of life, which emphasized self-reliance. The sisters raised sheep and grew corn and cotton, sometimes plowing their own fields. They made their own clothes from the wool and cotton they had raised, and became well known for their Christmas feasts, which consisted almost wholly of food they had grown themselves. The sisters inherited the farm from their father, and after the National Park was formed in the 1930’s, they obtained a lifetime lease. The National Park Service gained control of the property in 1964 when the last Walker sister died.

In addition to these historical sites, we also managed to squeeze in a couple of hikes through the woods that were just beginning to hint at fall colors, and find a few waterfalls. We drove to the Clingmans Dome Visitors Center, with dramatic views of the surrounding mountains, the higher we got. But, when we got to the top, we were in the clouds and we were unable to see anything from the 50-foot observation deck. Not only that, it was decidedly cold, so we didn’t stay long.

Here are some pictures from the very beautiful and aptly named Great Smoky Mountains National Park.