History of Gatlinburg

Such isolation would draw folklorists such as Cecil Sharp of London to the area in the years following World War I. Sharp's collection of Appalachian ballads was published in 1932.

The national park

Extensive logging in the early 1900s led to increased calls by conservationists for federal action, and in 1911 Congress passed the Weeks Act to allow for the purchase of land for national forests. Authors such as Horace Kephart and Knoxville-area business interests began advocating the creation of a national park in the Smokies, similar to Yellowstone or Yosemite in the Western United States. With the purchase of 76,000 acres (310 km) of the Little River Lumber Company tract in 1926, the movement quickly became a reality.

Andrew Huff would spearhead the movement in the Gatlinburg area. He opened the first hotel in Gatlinburg—the Mountain View Hotel—in 1916. His son, Jack, would establish LeConte Lodge atop Mount Le Conte in 1926. In spite of resistance from lumberers at Elkmont and difficulties with the Tennessee legislature, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was opened in 1934.

The park radically changed Gatlinburg. When the Pi Phis arrived in 1912, Gatlinburg was a small hamlet with six houses, a blacksmith shop, a general store, a Baptist church, and a greater community of 600 individuals, most of whom lived in log cabins. In 1934, the first year of the park, an estimated 40,000 visitors passed through the city. Within a year, this number had increased exponentially to 500,000. From 1940 to 1950, the cost of land in