The Sugarlands is a valley in Tennessee within the north-central Great Smoky Mountains, located in the southeastern United States. Formerly home to a string of small Appalachian communities, the valley is now the location of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park headquarters and the Sugarlands Visitor Center. Lying just south of Gatlinburg, the Sugarlands is one of the park's most popular access points.
The Sugarlands area stretches roughly from Grapeyard Ridge and Roaring Fork in the east to the slopes of Sugarland Mountain to the west.Michal Strutin, History Hikes of the Smokies (Gatlinburg: Great Smoky Mountains Association, 2003), 298–299. Mount Le Conte rises above the valley to the south and southeast. The West Fork of the Little Pigeon River, its source high in the mountains, passes through the Sugarlands, draining much of the valley.
When the first Euro-American settlers arrived in the early 19th century, they named the valley after the many sugar maple trees growing in the area at the time.Jerry Wear, Sugarlands: A Lost Community of Sevier County (Sevierville, Tennessee: Sevierville Heritage Committee, 1986), 5. Syrup was made from the sap in these trees and used as a sweetener in the days before the availability of cane sugar. While these trees were cleared by the early settlers, the sugar maple is still common throughout the park.
Geology
The Sugarlands is underlain by a Precambrian sandstone of the Ocoee Supergroup, known specifically as Roaring Fork sandstone.Harry Moore, A Roadside Guide to the Geology of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988), 33. This rock, like other formations throughout the Appalachian region, was formed from ancient ocean sediments nearly one billion years ago.Harry Moore, A Roadside Guide to the Geology of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988), 23–27. Erosional forces throughout the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras—especially during the last ice age—have carried rocks of various sizes down from boulder fields high up on the surrounding mountain slopes, leaving the valley coated with a bouldery alluvium.Harry Moore, A Roadside Guide to the Geology of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988), 37–42. Early farmers, having to move these rocks in order plant crops, stacked them up to make crude stone walls, many of which remain today.Michael Frome, Strangers In High Places: The Story of the Great Smoky Mountains (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994), introduction.
History
In Cherokee lore, the Sugarlands was part of the area known as "Walasi'yi", or "Frog place". Walasi'yi included Mount Le Conte and Bull Head, as well as "the ridge extending into Sevier County, Tennessee, between the Middle and West forks of Little Pigeon River."James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee (Nashville: Charles Elder, 1972), 545. In the legend "Aganunitsi and the Uktena," the Shawano medicine man, Aganunitsi, in exchange for his freedom, seeks out the great serpent, Uktena, in hopes of snatching a magical jewel from its forehead. After searching the surrounding mountains, Aganunitsi found his way to Walasi'yi:
Going still south to Walasi'yi, the Frog place, he found a great frog squatting in the gap, but when the people who came to see it were frightened like the others and ran away from the monster he mocked at them for being afraid of a frog and went on to the next gap.James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee (Nashville: Charles Elder, 1972), 299.
Early pioneers
The first European settlers arrived in the area around 1800, settling in the vicinity of what would eventually become Gatlinburg. Richard Reagan and William "Black Bill" Ogle—children of these early settlers—farmed land along Mill Creek (now LeConte Creek) in the eastern half of the Sugarlands.Michal Strutin, History Hikes of the Smokies (Gatlinburg: Great Smoky Mountains Association, 2003), 299. William Trentham homesteaded in the Fighting Creek area, where the Sugarlands Visitor Center now stands. In subsequent decades, three communities developed in the Sugarlands valley—the Forks-of-the-River and Fighting Creek communities in the vicinity of what is now the Sugarlands Visitor Center, and the Sugarlands community proper, which lay further to the south, between the two "Quiet Walkways" opposite the Huskey Gap Trail and the Chimney picnic area.Gladys Trentham Russell, Call Me Hillbilly (Alcoa, Tenn.: Russell Publishing Company, 1974), 7. Most of the inhabitants still living in the Sugarlands when the park was formed were descended from these early settlers.Gladys Trentham Russell, Call Me Hillbilly (Alcoa, Tenn.: Russell Publishing Company, 1974), 66.
For much of the 19th century, Sugarlanders lived in log cabins. The typical mountain cabin consisted of one room, 16' × 20', constructed of notched logs and puncheon floors. A chimney, usually made of slate and clay, rose along one wall. A lone window was on the wall opposite the chimney. Around 1900, modern frame houses slowly started replacing the log cabins.Jerry Wear, Sugarlands: A Lost Community of Sevier County (Sevierville, Tennessee: Sevierville Heritage Committee, 1986), 5–6.
A standard farm in the Sugarlands consisted of the cabin or house and a small vegetable garden, all of which was surrounded by a paling fence, and several outbuildings. A smokehouse and woodshed would likely be found near the kitchen, and a springhouse would straddle a nearby spring. Other likely outbuildings included barns, corn cribs (often affixed to the barns), chicken coops, and toolsheds. There were at least five gristmills in the Sugarlands, the largest belonging to Caleb Trentham.Jerry Wear, Sugarlands: A Lost Community of Sevier County (Sevierville, Tennessee: Sevierville Heritage Committee, 1986), 6. The tubwheel-powered mill of Noah "Bud" Ogle still stands today at Cherokee Orchard.
Civil War
Like much of southern Appalachia, the U.S. Civil War proved devastating for the Sugarlands. The mountain communities of East Tennessee (most of which were pro-Union) were especially vulnerable, as they were easy targets for Confederate raiders from North Carolina.Durwood Dunn, Cades Cove: The Life and Death of an Appalachian Community (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988), 136. During the war, Will Thomas—a Confederate colonel and later Cherokee chief—made improvements to the Oconaluftee Turnpike to allow Confederate marauders easier access to Sevier County.Michal Strutin, History Hikes of the Smokies (Gatlinburg: Great Smoky Mountains Association, 2003), 324. The Sugarlands would have been among the first communities approached along this road heading north from Chimney Tops.
Early in the war, Thomas' forces ascended the turnpike and occupied Gatlinburg. Thomas erected a small fort on Burg Hill in hopes of protecting salt peter mines at Alum Cave, along the northern slopes of Mount Le Conte. He was forced to withdraw, however, when a Union relief force threatened to surround the fort.Lucinda Ogle, Jerry Wear (editor), Sugarlands: A Lost Community in Sevier County, Tennessee (Sevierville, Tennessee: Sevierville Heritage Committee, 1986), 57.
Late 19th and early 20th centuries
As small farms in the Sugarlands recovered from the Civil War, some began growing enough excess crops to sell or trade. The more prosperous farmers opened small general stores, which were often located in the store owner's house or a room attached to the house. The stores sold flour, meal, meat, soda, salt, coffee, tobacco, snuff, and castor oil. The stores also bought (or traded for) chickens, eggs, honey, ginseng, and furs, which the store owner would take to Sevierville or Knoxville to trade.Jerry Wear, Sugarlands: A Lost Community in Sevier County, Tennessee (Sevierville, Tennessee: Sevierville Heritage Committee, 1986), 7. Sugarlanders who lived near fords of the Pigeon River had the most lucrative storefronts. Among them were Richard Reason Reagan (1830–1912), who owned a general store near the Sugarland Branch ford, and Alex Cole, who operated a storefront further up the river.Beulah Linn, "The West Fork of the Little Pigeon River," Smoky Mountain Historical Society Journal 12, no. 2 (Winter 1996): 3.
Around 1900, sawmills began moving into the area to harvest the thick forests of the Smokies. Andrew Huff had erected a sawmill in Gatlinburg, and the Little River Lumber Company began operating in the upper reaches of Little River by 1908. Many Sugarlanders found employment with the latter in Elkmont, which could be reached on foot by crossing Sugarland Mountain via what is now the Huskey Gap Trail.Vic Weals, The Last Train to Elkmont (Knoxville: Olden Press, 1993), 25–26. Bark from trees cut in the Sugarlands was often used for tanning.
Poverty plagued much of Appalachia in the early 20th century, and the Sugarlands was no exception. Former resident Alie Newman Maples recalled in a poem:
The Sugarlands so clear and clean, Altho our meals were mighty lean.Alie Newman Maples, "Memories of the Sugarlands," Smoky Mountain Historical Society Newsletter 3, no. 4 (September 1977): 3.
In 1912, the Pi Beta Phi women's fraternity established the Pi Beta Phi settlement school in Gatlinburg to combat poverty in the area.Michael Frome, Strangers In High Places: The Story of the Great Smoky Mountains (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994), 230. The early Pi Phi teachers' scrapbooks and letters recalled the region's sub-par conditions. One remarked that the Sugarlands was a "land of poorer homes" than even Gatlinburg, which was selected for the settlement school as the community most in need.Michael Frome, Strangers In High Places: The Story of the Great Smoky Mountains (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994), 231. Another recalled a dining experience with a family in the Sugarlands where the food was served on "large pail lids" while chickens roamed freely through the house. Some of the area children did not know simple childhood games, and others knew nothing about Christmas.Michael Frome, Strangers In High Places: The Story of the Great Smoky Mountains (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994), 236. Regardless, building on the initial successes of the Gatlinburg school, the Pi Phis decided to open a school in the Sugarlands in 1920. The school was located near the old Ransom Sims place, in the vicinity of the Sugarlands Cemetery. While the Sugarlanders were initially suspicious of the Pi Phis' intentions, they eventually welcomed the benefits of the settlement school. Its presence allowed children in Gatlinburg and the Sugarlands to get a basic education and helped to improve the health and economy of the area.Michael Frome, Strangers In High Places: The Story of the Great Smoky Mountains (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994), 236–7.
Moonshining
By 1900, moonshining had become rampant throughout the Smokies.Mary Bell Smith, In the Shadow of the White Rock (Boone, N.C.: Minor's Publishing Company, 1979), 53–54. The dense forest, isolated coves, and ready availability of corn made mountain valleys such as the Sugarlands the perfect places to hide and operate illegal stills. Horace Kephart, a writer who lived on the North Carolina side of the mountains in the early 20th century, described the Sugarlands during this period:
...a country of ill fame, hidden deep in remote gorges, difficult of access, tenanted by a sparse population who preferred to be a law unto themselves. For many a year it had been known on our side as Blockaders' Glory, which is the same as saying Moonshiners' Paradise, and we all believed it to be fitly named.Horace Kephart, Our Southern Highlanders (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976), 213.