Pre 1900's - 1920's | 1930's |1940's |1950's |1960's | 1970's |1980's |1990's | 2000's

Back to the Smokies Timeline

 Train Whistle

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To look at the lush forest canopy that now covers the Smokies it might not occur to most visitors that at one time much of this place was logged. Now boasting more tree species than are found in all of Europe, 2/3 of the land that is now within the park was logged between the late 19th century and the mid 1930s.

When logging operations first started in the Smokies they were small and selective relying on horse drawn skidders and waterways to move marketable timber from areas throughout the park.

The early 1900s however brought a different kind of logging to the Smokies. At this time larger lumber companies, many of which were functioning with funds acquired while cutting over timberland in the northern states, came into the Smokies and started building. With these larger companies came railroads, camp towns, smaller timber camps, large log ponds and saw mills.

This new technology changed logging in the Smokies forever. Railroads allowed for more extensive and previously hard to reach places to be stripped bare. Lumber towns like Elkmont and Proctor often accommodated up to 1000 residents and included churches, schools, stores, hotels, baseball fields and housing for the workers families.

The land left behind by most large logging companies was completely devastated, with no remaining old growth, slash such as discarded branches and bark, and small trees uprooted causing fire hazard. Erosion, floods and fires plagued the burgeoning park area for years to come; even after the logging operations were removed for good.

But the land and forest has since healed, leaving behind a densely biodiverse ecosystem, in places that may have been barren and desolate only 80 years before. To this day it is still possible to see the remnants of the logging activity (although in some cases it takes some detective work) in places like Elkmont, Smokemont and Tremont even though the park has grown up around them.