Tremont, Tennessee

Tremont is a region in the northwestern Great Smoky Mountains National Park, located in the southeastern United States.

Tremont is situated along the Middle Prong of Little River a few miles south of Townsend in Blount County, Tennessee.

Both of these ridges run perpendicular to the main crest of the Great Smokies, which rises several thousand feet above Tremont to the south.

From this junction, Middle Prong flows north for another 6 miles (9.7 km) to its mouth along Little River at an area known as the Townsend Y.

A gravel road extends for another three miles (5 km) to a cul-de-sac and parking area at the Lynn Camp-Thunderhead junction.

William Marion Walker (1838–1919), who was born in nearby Tuckaleechee Cove, and his first wife Nancy Caylor were the first known permanent settlers along Middle Prong.

[1] Walker kept over a hundred bee stands, which he robbed without the use of mask or smoke, and sold the honey in nearby Tuckaleechee.

The first logging venture to reach Walker Valley and the Middle Prong area was that of John English, a Knoxville businessman whose company began cutting timber in nearby Tuckaleechee Cove in the early 1880s.

On Townsend's orders, a small train carried Walker's coffin ceremoniously to the Bethel Baptist Cemetery in Tuckaleechee, where it rests today.

[7] Although Townsend sold his Little River tract to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Commission in 1926, he did so with the agreement that he could continue logging in the area for 15 years.

[8] After logging operations had commenced at Elkmont in 1925, Townsend ordered the tracks to be pulled up and moved to Middle Prong.

The base camp at Tremont consisted of a post office, hotel, maintenance sheds, a general store, and a community center that served as a church, school, and movie theater.

With the formation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1934 and the end of logging operations in 1938, however, the forest quickly regrew.

Today, other than the occasional stray skidder cable or railroad tie, there is little immediate evidence that logging ever took place in the area.