Cataloochee (Great Smoky Mountains)

Cataloochee is a valley in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, located in the Southeastern United States.

Now a recreational and historic area within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Cataloochee was once home to a substantial Appalachian community and Cherokee hunting ground.

Cataloochee consists of three narrow valleys running parallel to one another, and "walled in" by the high ridges of the Great Balsam Mountains.

[2] The Cataloochee Trail, which stretched from the Cove Creek area to what is now Cosby, Tennessee, connected the Cherokee Middlesettlements with the Overhill towns.

Hattie Caldwell Davis, a descendant of Cataloochee's first Euro-American settlers, recalled that her ancestors spoke "fluent Cherokee" and were always on friendly terms with the natives.

Davis' great-grandfather, Levi, is believed to have provided aid to Cherokees hiding in the forest during the Trail of Tears period.

Family tradition recalls that Palmer had lost a fortune drinking and gambling in Waynesville and decided to move to Cataloochee to make a fresh start.

Prominent early settlers along Caldwell Fork include Sol Sutton, Elijah Messer (1844–1936), and Jesse McGee.

[7] In 1854, Jack Vess, a son-in-law of George Palmer, and Daniel Cook (1831–1908) became the first permanent settlers in Little Cataloochee, which is opposite Noland Mountain to the north of the main settlement.

Along with the fertile bottomland in Cataloochee, the raising of livestock was the primary incentive that drew early settlers to the valley.

The grassy balds were perfect summertime pastures for sheep and cattle, and hogs could roam and forage in the dense forests.

Every year, Cataloochee's residents would drive their livestock and turkeys to markets in Waynesville or Charleston, South Carolina.

[9] As game was plentiful in the valley, hunting and trapping provided supplemental income to Cataloochee's early residents.

In the late 19th century, George Palmer managed to get the state to place a bounty on wolves, which were consistently killing livestock in the valley.

[14] Among the Union raiders was a band led by Colonel George W. Kirk, who policed numerous pro-Confederate settlements in western North Carolina.

While on an excursion in the valley, Kirk's Raiders, the 3rd North Carolina Mounted Infantry, found this hospital and killed or wounded 15 patients recovering within.

Teague marched the three to a remote point along Sterling Ridge, and ordered Henry Grooms to play a tune on his fiddle.

The arrival of the railroads gave the economy a small boost and helped western North Carolina recover from the war.

Palmer was protective of his forest; he rejected all buy-out offers from lumber companies and even barred his neighbors from cutting wood on his property.

As a result, some of the tallest trees in the valley are found along the Boogerman Trail, which follows the old road connecting Big Cataloochee with the Caldwell Fork settlements.

During Prohibition, some of Cataloochee's poorer residents and small farmers supplemented their income by selling moonshine, which was in high demand.

[25] The arrival of the national park movement in the 1920s put an end to large-scale logging operations in the northeastern Smokies before they reached the Cataloochee lowlands.

Tourists began trickling into the Smokies in the late 19th century, drawn by mineral-rich mountain springs that were thought to have health-restoring qualities.

[26] In the 1920s, the increase in tourism and the destructive effects of logging gave rise to a movement to create a national park in the Smokies.

In 1928, Reverend Pat Davis broke the news to the residents of Cataloochee at Palmer's Chapel, telling them the valley was within proposed park boundaries and that they would be forced to sell.

Hattie Caldwell Davis, who was at the meeting, recalled women crying and men threatening to dynamite the roads and shoot anyone who tried to enter.

[27] Some men had the idea of blocking Cove Creek Gap so the government representatives would have to come in from the Tennessee side, where Mount Sterling residents would surely stop them.

Widespread opposition and threats of litigation stalled the plan until 1982, when budget cuts forced the Park Service to abandon it.

In 2001, the Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center was established at Purchase Knob (atop Cataloochee Divide) on land donated to the park by Kathryn McNeil and Voit Gilmore the previous year.

[34] For anthropological and historical purposes, the National Park Service has preserved several structures dating to Cataloochee's pre-park days.