A Gift for All Time, Great Smoky Mountains National Park Administrative History
Catton T. 2008. A Gift for All Time, Great Smoky Mountains National Park Administrative History. Park Administrative Histories. NPS: Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Gaitlingburg Tennessee
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a place of majestic mountain views, delightful waterfalls and tumbling streams, and wondrous biological diversity. The park is habitat for 150 different species of trees, 60 species of mammals, 200 species of birds, and some 1,500 species of flowering plants. The area’s warm southern latitude, humid mountain climate, and variations in elevation combine to make it a rich tapestry of ecotypes and microenvironments. Nearly one-fourth of the park’s forested area has never been commercially logged, and the park’s natural zone, which is managed as de facto wilderness as defined by the Wilderness Act, covers more than 460,000 acres, making it one of the largest wilderness areas in the eastern United States. The park’s outstanding interest to science is recognized by its designation as both an International Biosphere Reserve and a World Heritage Site. The park also features one of the nation’s largest collections of rustic buildings. Some of these buildings were long ago dismantled, moved, and reconstructed in new locations. Others still stand in their original settings. Log cabins and barns, grist mills, churches, and isolated cemeteries serve to remind the park visitor that this landscape was once home to a considerable population of mountain farm families. These cultural features form historical enclaves within what is predominantly a natural park. People come to Great Smoky Mountains National Park at all times of year to sightsee, hike, camp, fish, ride horseback, backpack, and learn about nature. The summer months are the most popular time to visit the park, while the height of fall color brings a late surge of visitors to the Smokies before the relative calm of winter sets in. Receiving nine to ten million visitors annually, this is the most popular national park in the NPS system. This administrative history is organized with a mix of chronological and topical chapters. The first eight chapters are chronological and tell the story of the park’s origins and development as a park. These chapters focus on land acquisition, decisions about where to build park roads and where to locate other park infrastructure, and eventually, where to draw wilderness boundaries. Chapters Nine through Twenty are topical and deal with various components of visitor services, resource management, and external relationships. It is hoped that the first eight chapters will provide a broad geographic and chronological context for understanding why the area was set aside as a park and how it was developed as a park, while the latter twelve chapters build on that context and delve into the main elements of park management other than development.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Catton, Theodore
- Date of Issue
- 2008-10-10
- Publisher
- NPS: Great Smoky Mountains National Park
- Units
- GRSM
- Keywords
- Appalachia, Appalachian Club, Asheville Citizen, Cades Cover, Cataloochee Valley, CCF, Cherokee Indian Reservation, Clear Cutting, Clearing, DSC, East Tennessee Automobile Club, Elkmont, Farming, Great Smoky Mountains, Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association, GRSM, GSMCA, Kinzel Springs, Knoxville, Little River, Logging, Lumber Industry, NA II, NASER, National Park Service, NCSA, North Carolina, NPS, Patch Farming, Pine, Plott Balsam Mountains, RG, Rockefeller, Stephen Mather, Sunshine, Tennessee, WCU, Weeks Act, Wonderland Club, Wonderland Park Hotel