Pigeon Forge, TN & Smoky Mountain National Park

We arrived Sunday here at Pigeon Forge, TN. The tour of the Smokies began on Monday with registration, orientation, and dinner with a show at Shindigs. The buffet was great and we even had a country western singer that entertained while we ate. The show highlighted music of Tennessee. A featured entertainer was eighteen years old and was the best singer we've ever seen that impersonated Elvis. The show was very good.

Tuesday was a free day and we went to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park with six other couples. We took an eleven mile loop tour of Cades Cove. The tour feaures buildings of the community that was first settled around 1820. John Oliver bought the place above in 1826 and he built the log home shortly after.

The house is well preserved and shows how the settlers of the day lived. The doors were small in an effort to conserve heat in the winters. The rocks in the chimney were held together with mud mortar. Mud was also used to fill the Chinks or cracks between the logs.

One look towards the valley from the back porch makes it clear why John Oliver chose this location for his homestead. What a beautiful view!
The graveyard behind the Primitive Baptist Church has some graves that have been there for over a century. This church was established in 1827 with a log building. The building above replaced the original building in 1887. While we were there park employees were digging a grave for a person that had lived in Cades Cove as a child. The funeral would be the next day.
While sitting and enjoying the cozy solid wood interior of the church, we felt compelled to sing some hymns. We started with "Amazing Grace". There is something about the wooden construction that made he music sound so good! Some other visitors insisted that we sing several more old hymns.
Just a few miles down the road was the Methodist Church that was built in 115 days for $115.
The church was established in the 1820s but was replaced by the building above in 1902. Of course we had to sing a few hymns here also, so we started off with "I'll Fly Away".
Elijah Oliver, son of John Oliver, built a much more elaborate log home. It had several rooms and even has a "stranger room" added to the front porch to accommodate overnight visitors.
This spring house was used to keep food items such as milk and butter in the cool spring water. It was also used to "pipe" water into the house through a series of connected logs with grooves cut in their top sides. Some of these logs can be seen in the foreground in front of the structure.

This slab door on the side of one of the out buildings has wooden hinges on the right side. Pieces of wood at the top and bottom of the door are in the shape of eyes. A dowel attached to the back side of the door passes through the centers of the eyes to form a hinge.

The Gregg-Cable house was built in 1879 by Leason Gregg on land he bought from John Cable who had built the nearby mill.

John Cable built this mill in 1870. The water-powered mill was used as both a grist mill and sawmill. It is still used today to grind both corn and wheat.

This unique cantilever barn has an overhanging area that provides shelter for both livestock and farm equipment. We might as well have traveled by wagon as it took us all day to travel the whole eleven-mile loop. It was a very interesting tour which helped us understand how early settlers survived by subsistance farming.

Today we went to DollyWood. Although it rained off and on there were plenty of shows to take shelter. The shows were all top notch and we even took time to ride some roller coasters when the rain let off. We all had a good time despite the rain!