Smoky Mountain Heritage- A Woman with a Vision
The origin of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park can be traced back to 1923 when Mrs. Willis P. Davis of Knoxville, Tennessee traveled to the American West and was taken by the beauty of the national parks out there. Living near the Smoky Mountain foothills, Davis knew that the Great Smoky Mountains needed to be preserved as well, thus she began the Park Movement.
The movement was slow going at first. Local and national politics served to delay progress. Disputes over whether the land should become a National Forest or a National Park, exactly what land to use, as well as lack of federal funding stood in the way of creating the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. With the construction of a better road between Knoxville, Tennessee and Asheville, North Carolina, the Park Movement gained more support.
Colonel David Chapman became the spearhead National Park supporter, and in 1926 the three-year struggle ended with Congress finally authorizing the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Park Commissions quickly raised money to purchase 6,600 land tracts through beneficiary donations and the Tennessee and North Carolina states.
The devalued currency and skyrocketing land prices of the Great Depression posed a problem for the Park Commission; they appealed to Congress for extra funding, but actually got needed support from a $5 million donation from the Rockefeller family. In 1933 the U.S. Government contributed $1.55 million to complete land acquisition.
Despite the struggles with money and politics, Congress established the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on June 15, 1934, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt officially dedicated the park six years later on September 2, 1940. The hard road from conception to realization was complete. Now a part of the rolling Smoky foothills and mountains will be forever preserved thanks to one woman’s vision and much hard work and philanthropic efforts of many Americans.
Today the National Park is home to unique to the area animals and over 4,000 plant species. Nearly 12 million visitors frequent the park annually.