Elkmont

The logging town

A logging railroad made Elkmont a transfer station in 1908

The Little River Lumber Company set up Elkmont in 1908, where logs moved from gear-operated trains to rod-operated trains bound for the sawmill at Townsend. The camp was temporary: shanties were loaded onto flatcars and moved up the slopes as the cutting went on.

750 millionboard feet of lumber cut by the company by 1939

The clubs

Knoxville families turned down by one club formed another in 1919

In 1910 well-off Knoxville hunters and anglers formed the Appalachian Club. In 1912 the Wonderland Hotel opened on a hill, with 50 rooms. Membership in the Appalachian Club proved remarkably difficult to obtain, so several rejected Knoxvillians bought the hotel site in 1919 and formed the Wonderland Club.

The park idea

In 1920 cottage owners at Elkmont began to suggest a national park

In 1920 Willis P. Davis and his wife Anne, who had a summer cottage at Elkmont, suggested a national park after a visit to Yellowstone. Another cottage owner, David C. Chapman, took the initiative and in 1925 hosted legislators at Elkmont. The valley also held one of the strongest anti-park movements.

Lem Ownby

Lem Ownby turned away two Supreme Court justices at his cabin

Lem Ownby, born near Jakes Creek in 1889, held a lifetime lease when the park began and sold honey to hikers. A Knoxville lawyer brought two Supreme Court justices to meet a real mountain man. Ownby replied that they were not welcome to come in. He died in 1984, the last of the lifetime lessees outside Cades Cove.

The leases end

Leases ended in 1992, and most of the cottages were gone by 2018

The Park Service did not renew the cottage leases in 1992. The Wonderland Hotel collapsed in 2005. The service chose the Appalachian Clubhouse and 18 cabins to restore, and the remaining structures were documented and removed in 2018, though many chimneys remain.