Looking for Help with Historical Research on the Park

[Jim Casada]

Byron--Good for you for helping Greenie out. We exchanged some pretty detailed e-mails and I gave him my thoughts on more specific focus and narrowing of the topic (putting on my old professor hat for the first time in a long time) as well as a longish list of printed sources to consult. The fact that you can link him up with folks who have living in the Park memories is wonderful.
My brother and his research partner have been doing quite a bit of that on the N. C. side, and some of these old-timers have incredible memories. Of course my father spent his boyhood in what is now the Park (on the head of Juneywhank Branch, a small feeder of Deep Creek) and was full of lore about the hardscrabble way of life he and his family knew.
For my part, I'm just pleased that there continues to be interest in that world we have lost and the folks who peopled it.
Jim Casada
www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com

[Byron Begley]

Hi Jim,

Thank you for helping Greenie. You are much more qualified than I am. I noticed Blue Raider proposed a new category for hunting. I think that is a great idea. Another category for this board might be "History of the Great Smoky Mountains". I bet you would love that one. I would too.

Take care buddy,

Byron

[Jim Casada]

Byron--I'd love a category on the history of the Smokies. Obviously I have a deeper interest than many, but I'm comfortable in saying many others would like to know more. One of the neat things about fishing in the Park is that there's history all around you. For example, when fishing lower Luftee you can take short walks of 100-200 yards and visit half a dozen cemeteries (one of them a slave cemetery), hike up Noland a bit and see evidence of a world we have lost at every turn, and wandering through Sugarlands (the real one, not Park headquarters) brings you face to face with evidence of the one-time presence of humans at every turn.
Jim Casada
www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com

[pmike]

What Mr. Casada posted. I love history and the various apsect of the history of the region of and surrounding the Smokies are particulary interesting to me as an adult that has vacationed in the area since being a young child of so many years ago.

MIke

[MadisonBoats]

Originally Posted by Greenie

I am in the process of writing an essay for a graduate level Rhetoric course at UT-Knoxville. The course is a Southern Rhetoric course--how the South represented through Rhetoric, etc.

The essay is on the formation of the Park; specifically, what I am interested in exploring are its effects on the residents of what is now the Park. Of course, since it is a historical essay, I will also delve into how the idea for the Park originated, how the idea was made reality, etc. But, that sort of stuff is rather easy to research, so what I am needing help with is finding people, or descendants of people, who lived in the Park during its inception and have personal stories they wouldn't mind sharing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Greenie,
Search the LRO message board for old park photos or postcards. I remember someone posting a topic with them in it. It led me to a great link with tons of archives and photos at the University of TN. I could not find it in my bookmarks or I would have posted it. Good luck and I am sure this will be a great topic to research.

[Jim Casada]

Madison Boats--That's an excellent suggestion for Greenie, and as I've told him, there's a fellow at the UT library, Ken Wise, who really knows a lot about Park history. He's written what I consider the best hiking guide, by far, for the Park, and he has another one approaching completion (the earlier one is out of print). I missed the photos/post cards material on this site, but there's scads of material at UT.
Jim Casada
www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com

[MadisonBoats]

Mr. Casada,
This was the topic I was referring to in my post.

http://littleriveroutfitters.com/for...river+pictures

Also, someone posted this link and you can browse to other archives from this link. Great Stuff...

http://diglib.lib.utk.edu/cgi/i/imag...ize=20&start=1

[Jim Casada]

Shawn--Thanks a bunch. I'll spend some plesant time perusing and will be interested to see whether the Kephart collection I owned for decades, which was acquired by UT earlier this year, has been catalogued yet.
Jim Casada
www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com

[MadisonBoats]

Originally Posted by Jim Casada

Shawn--Thanks a bunch. I'll spend some plesant time perusing and will be interested to see whether the Kephart collection I owned for decades, which was acquired by UT earlier this year, has been catalogued yet.
Jim Casada
www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com

Great! Send us a link if you find them. I would love to view them. I spent hours looking through all the archives of photos on this link when I first saw it in the original post. Their quality and beauty are absolutely amazing and some of the best I have ever viewed! This is definitely a link you want to add to your browser favorites.

This is the link to the Great Smoky Mountains Collection:
http://diglib.lib.utk.edu/cgi/i/imag...up;xc=1;g=gsmc

Also; I would like to thank/credit [ahighlan] for posting the original link.

[Bran]

Fascinating topics. I love history and especially have a fascination with the park history and surrounding towns. I know I have asked Byron before about the old trading post building at the corner of 321 and 73. It was pictured in a book that talked about Will Walker coming down to trade honey there, and I've searched for it, but, like a lot of history, it's gone except to memory.
I did have good fortune to bump into a church pastor at Townsend this past Spring who was born in Cade's Cove and he talked and shared with me for awhile. I was hung on every word and thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. He remembered the old store and said it was near the old bridge on 321 but had fallen down now.