The Great Smoky Mountains, with 16 peaks higher than 6,000 feet in elevation, is part of the larger Southern Appalachian Range. With dimensions roughly 70 miles east to west and 8 miles north to south, the area is bounded on the east by the Pigeon River and on the West by the Little Tennessee River. All of the rivers, which have eroded deep swathes through the mountains, run more-or-less westerly and eventually empty into the Mississippi River.

The Smoky Mountains are much older than the Rockies. Erosion over 125 million years has diminished their elevations and resulted in the lush forested areas one sees today. First inhabited by the Native American Indians, early settlers began to intervene around 1800. By 1836 the Cherokee were being relocated to make room for even more settlers. The Trail of Tears, which attempted to relocate the Indians westward, is one of the sadder tales of our American history. Today Native Indians once again inhabit large areas of the Smokies.

The Smoky Mountains became a forgotten land as later settlers moved further west looking for better farmland. By the 1900s a nearly isolated culture made it's roots deep in the mountains. Life was not easy, but those who stayed in these remote areas managed to scruff-out a meager living.

Then the loggers came, devastating nearly two-thirds of the forestland in the Smokies and leaving the rest seriously maimed. About the same time there was a movement to establish a national park somewhere in the east. World War I and political delays allowed the loggers even more time to clear-cut vast chucks of woodlands. Finally in 1926 the first sections of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park were purchased in the Elkmont area of Tennessee. Funds for additional purchases were slow in coming until John D. Rockefeller, Jr. donated five million dollars in the name of his mother.

Today the Great Smoky Mountain National Park is America's most visited National Park. There are more than 600 miles of protected hiking trails through the Park and numerous projects underway that will both preserve the natural beauty of the Park and return much of what was lost over the centuries. It is a great place to visit and study about.

CLICK HERE to visit the official National Park Service website