Early history For centuries,
Cherokee hunters, as well as other Native American hunters before them, used a footpath known as the Indian Gap Trail to access the abundant game in the forests and coves of the Smokies. This trail connected the
Great Indian Warpath with Rutherford Indian Trace, following the West Fork of the Little Pigeon River from modern-day
Sevierville through modern-day
Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, and the Sugarlands, crossing the crest of the Smokies along the slopes of Mount Collins, and descending into
North Carolina along the banks of the
Oconaluftee River. US-441 largely follows this same route today, although it crests at
Newfound Gap rather than Indian Gap. Although various 18th-century European and early American hunters and
fur trappers probably traversed or camped in the flats where Gatlinburg is now situated, it was
Edgefield, South Carolina, native William Ogle (1751–1803) who first decided to permanently settle in the area. With the help of the Cherokee, Ogle cut, hewed, and notched logs in the flats, planning to erect a
cabin the following year. He returned home to Edgefield to retrieve his family and grow one final crop for supplies. However, shortly after his arrival in Edgefield, a
malaria epidemic swept the low country, and Ogle succumbed to the disease in 1803. His widow, Martha Huskey Ogle (1756–1827), moved the family to Virginia, where she had relatives. Sometime around 1806, Martha Huskey Ogle made the journey over Indian Gap Trail to what is now Gatlinburg with her brother, Peter Huskey, her daughter, Rebecca, and her daughter's husband, James McCarter. William Ogle's notched logs awaited them, In the decade following the arrival of the Ogles, McCarters, and Huskeys in what came to be known as
White Oak Flats, a steady stream of settlers moved into the area. Among these early settlers were Timothy Reagan (c. 1750–1830), John Ownby Jr. (1791–1857), and Henry Bohanon (1760–1842). Their descendants still live in the area today.
Radford Gatlin and the Civil War In 1856, a post office was established in the general store of Radford Gatlin (c. 1798–1880), giving the town the name Gatlinburg. Even though the town bore his name, Gatlin, who didn't arrive in the flats until around 1854, constantly bickered with his neighbors. By 1857, a full-blown feud had erupted between the Gatlins and the Ogles, probably over Gatlin's attempts to divert the town's main road. The eve of the
U.S. Civil War found Gatlin, who became a
Confederate sympathizer, at odds with the residents of the flats, who were mostly pro-
Union, and he was forced out in 1859. Despite its anti-slavery sentiments, Gatlinburg, like most Smoky communities, tried to remain neutral during the war. This changed when a company of Confederate Colonel
William Holland Thomas' Legion occupied the town to protect the
saltpeter mines at Alum Cave, near the Tennessee-North Carolina border. Federal forces marched south from
Knoxville and Sevierville to drive out Thomas' men, who had built a small fort on Burg Hill. Lucinda Oakley Ogle, whose grandfather witnessed the ensuing skirmish, later recounted her grandfather's recollections: ... he told me about when he was a sixteen-year-old boy during the Civil War and would hide under a big cliff on Turkey Nest Ridge and watch the Blue Coats ride their horses around the graveyard hill, shooting their cannon toward Burg Hill where the Grey Coats had a fort and would ride their horses around the Burg Hill ... As the Union forces converged on the town, the outnumbered Confederates were forced to retreat across the Smokies to North Carolina. Confederate forces did not return, although sporadic small raids continued until the end of the war.
Early 20th century In the 1880s, the invention of the bandsaw and the logging railroad led to a boom in the lumber industry. As forests throughout the Southeastern United States were harvested, lumber companies pushed deeper into the mountain areas of the Appalachian highlands. In 1901, Colonel W.B. Townsend established the Little River Lumber Company in
Tuckaleechee Cove to the west, and lumber interests began buying up logging rights to vast tracts of forest in the Smokies. Andrew Jackson Huff (1878–1949), originally of
Greene County, was a pivotal figure in Gatlinburg at this time. Huff erected a sawmill in Gatlinburg in 1900, and local residents began supplementing their income by providing lodging to loggers and other lumber company officials. In 1912, the
Pi Beta Phi women's fraternity established a
settlement school (now
Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts) in Gatlinburg after a survey of the region found the town to be most in need of educational facilities in the area. Although skeptical locals were initially worried that the fraternity might be religious propagandists or opportunists, the school's enrollment grew from 33 to 134 in its first year of operation. Along with providing basic education to children in the area, the school's staff created a small market for local crafts. Isolation in the region attracted folklorists such as
Cecil Sharp of
London to the area in the years following
World War I. Sharp's collection of Appalachian ballads was published in 1932.
National park Extensive logging in the early 1900s led to increased calls by conservationists for federal action, and in 1911, Congress passed the
Weeks Act to allow for the purchase of land for national forests. Authors such as Horace Kephart and Knoxville-area businesses began advocating for the creation of a
national park in the Smokies that would be similar to
Yellowstone or
Yosemite in the Western United States. With the purchase of in the Little River Lumber Company tract in 1926, the movement quickly became a reality. Andrew Huff spearheaded the movement in the Gatlinburg area, and he opened the first hotel in Gatlinburg – the
Mountain View Hotel – in 1916. His son, Jack, established LeConte Lodge atop
Mount Le Conte in 1926. Despite resistance from lumberers at
Elkmont and difficulties with the Tennessee legislature, In 1934, the first year the park was open, an estimated 40,000 visitors passed through the city. Within a year, this number had increased over twelvefold to 500,000. While the park's arrival benefited Gatlinburg and made many of the town's residents wealthy, the tourism explosion led to problems with
air quality and
urban sprawl. Even in modern times, the town's infrastructure is often pushed to the limit on peak vacation days and must consistently adapt to accommodate the growing number of tourists.
Fire of 2016 Starting in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park at
Chimney Tops in November 2016, a moderately contained wildfire was compounded by very strong winds – with gusts recorded up to – and extremely dry conditions due to drought, causing it to spread down into Gatlinburg,
Pigeon Forge,
Pittman Center, and other nearby areas. It forced mass evacuations, and Governor
Bill Haslam ordered the National Guard to the area. The center of Gatlinburg's tourist district escaped heavy damage, but the surrounding wooded region was called "the apocalypse" by a fire department lieutenant. Approximately 14,000 people were evacuated that evening, more than 2,400 structures were damaged or destroyed, and damages totaled more than $500 million. Fourteen people died in the fires, including local citizens and visiting tourists. Following the fires, the town of Gatlinburg was shut down and considered a crime scene. The city reopened to residents only after a few days but maintained a strict curfew for more than a week, only reopening to the public after the curfew was lifted. In June 2017, the Sevier County district attorney dropped charges against two juveniles accused of starting the fire due to an inability to prove their actions led to the devastation that occurred in Gatlinburg five days later. In May 2018, two Gatlinburg residents filed a $14.8 million lawsuit against the federal government for personal losses suffered in the fire.
Registered historic sites •
First Methodist Church, Gatlinburg: Designed by
Charles I. Barber in
Late Gothic Revival style. •
Settlement School Community Outreach Historic District:
Pi Beta Phi established a settlement school in the area in 1912. This part of the designated historic district includes the Jennie Nicol Health Clinic Building, the Arrowcraft Shop, the Ogle Cabin, Cottage at the Creek, and Craftsman's Fair Grounds and School Playground. The
Settlement School Dormitories and Dwellings Historic District consists of Helmick House (Teacher's Cottage), Stuart Dormitory, Ruth Barrett Smith Staff House, Old Wood Studio, a chicken coop, and a stock barn. ==Geography==