Cades Cove is a national treasure that is rich in history, a jewel of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
But Rex Caughron doesn’t bother much with going anymore.
“Very seldom do I go through the Cove,” he said. “It don’t look like Cades Cove to me.”
In another life, Cades Cove – or at least a hefty piece of it – would have been his birthright.
The son of Kermit and Lois Caughron, Rex is a fifth-generation descendant of the Shields who first settled the area and carved out a life among the mountains’ natural beauty.
Now, as the 100-year anniversary of the founding of the national park in 1934 approaches, Rex probably knows the land, the hills and valleys, the knobs and balds and trails, the creeks and the butts as well as anyone living.
Who were the first settlers in Cades Cove?
According to the National Park Service (NPS), the first European settlers arrived to the Cove in the early 1820s. The land was fertile and supplied the settlers with crops such as corn. They built log houses, barns and smokehouses.
Before the European settlers arrived, Cherokee Indians traveled through the valley to hunt abundant wildlife.
Baptist and Methodist churches were established in the 1820s. By 1850, the population reached 685.
John Oliver, a veteran of the War of 1812, was a notable early settler to the Cove. The Oliver Cabin is the oldest standing structure in the park today.
What was it like to grow up in Cades Cove?
Rex’s dad Kermit Caughron was born in the Cove in May of 1912.
He grew up there, went to church and school and learned who he was gonna be in life alone in the high mountains.
As a young man, Kermit spent his summers herding cattle and sheep up along the North Carolina border, earning $1 a head for the season, working up where the Appalachian trail runs now.
“Whenever he came up, it wasn’t a park. They could rabbit hunt and there wasn’t deer or bear,” Rex said. “The deer didn’t show up until the late 50s.”
In a 1975 interview, Kermit explained bears were a danger to livestock.
“Used to, when one got in, why we come down here, and we’d get up a crew of hunters, you know, and dogs and go back up there and kill it,” Kermit said. “There wasn’t any open season or closed season. Why, one killed a cow, why, a calf, why, we killed a bear, then had a feast.”
The cattle could graze up in the mountains, in part, because each fall the mountain people would set fires to beat back the brush and make way for the grasses to grow fresh and new in the spring. Now the forest has taken those lands back for itself.
“They burn it. I can remember them burning those big brush fires up there,” Rex said. “I don’t guess they’ll see that again. They’re gonna let nature take its course.”
The transition to the national park
According to the NPS, when Tennessee and North Carolina began to purchase land for the national park, one of the first large pieces of land included most of the mountains north of the Cove.
When the government came and bought the land in Elkmont, folks got lifetime leases to live on their homestead.
The people in the Cades Cove area were told to move.
The NPS says some families welcomed the state’s effort to buy the park. But others resisted.
For the Caughrons, Kermit’s father sold and moved the family to a farm in Maryville.
Kermit left his beloved mountains for a time – four years to be exact – but Lois told the Daily Times in 2007 that Kermit was never satisfied with life off of the mountain.
“Kermit worked a day or two at Alcoa, then put in a 10-day notice. He’d stay with some of his cousins in Alcoa and then come home on weekends, but he’d rather farm as work out there.”
Lois, by the way, made it known in the same article she’d just as soon stayed where there was electricity, plumbing and a heat pump.
“I never wanted to go back to Cades Cove,” she said.
Still, Kermit negotiated his return. He and Lois moved back the year they got married.
Kermit had a five-year lease on the old homeplace. He raised cattle in the Cove. Kermit became known as the “bee man”.
He sold fresh honey for a dollar a jar from a stand near his home, entirely on the honor system.
The family’s agreement with the park service
In a way, the Caughrons served as living museum exhibits with the caveat that they met the conditions of the lease.
The park service always had a 90-day out clause on the five-year lease. If the park service decided it was time for the Caughrons to leave, they’d have 3 months to resettle their lives.
“We done what the park service wanted,” Rex said. “We kept the pastures mowed and put up the hay and tried to keep the cattle away from the Loop Road.”
Kermit and Lois were back living in the Cove when Rex joined the family, though he was born at an old doctor’s house in Walland, which is a ways up the road toward Maryville.
Rex was a member of the next to the last generation to be raised in the Cove.
As Rex obtained his own five-year renewable lease for a home near the ranger’s station, his daughters would have the honor of being the Cove’s last generation.
Preserving a national treasure, erasing a family’s way of life
Over the decades, Rex served witness to the rippling effects of the national park’s creation, which both preserved a national treasure and erased his daddy’s way of life.
“I’ve seen a lot of changes,” he said. “When I started school, there were 27 in my class. When I graduated, in 1962, there were only three.”
That ride to school was something of an ordeal.
“That bus driver lived on past the old mill,” Rex said. “He hauled us out in the morning before light and dropped us back off after seven at night. It was a long day.”
And it was a longer day while they were building the bridge at the Townsend Wye. The forced detour took the bus along Rich Mountain Road.
“Those awful old school buses didn’t have no power,” he explained. “It rode second gear about all the way over. I didn’t enjoy that ride across Rich Mountain.”
Over the years, Rex came to know the roads in and out of the park about as well as he knew the land itself.
“I know the road forward and backward out of the Cove,” he said. “I can lay down in the back seat of a car, I can tell you exactly where I’m at on the road.”
Even though he doesn’t go back into the Loop, he still rides that road to visit friends at the campground and he still carries his deep affection for the Cove.
“It’s where I made a living, where I raised four girls,” he said. “How quiet it was at night, and the stars, that’s another thing that stood out to me. You didn’t have no street lights, didn’t have no people,”
But as deep as his affection for the place is, Rex isn’t prone to waxing poetic. His life in the Cove was a working, practical thing. His favorite memory isn’t a creek, a hike or the scenery.
Memories on life in the Cove
Asked about his biggest memories of life in the Cove, his answers are pragmatic.
“The biggest thing I can remember is working,” he said.
“I started driving a tractor before I went to grade school. That was a big thing for me. I enjoyed it. The only thing I didn’t get to do, I didn’t have nobody to play with other than my two sisters, that was the biggest disadvantage. That and if you wanted to go to town and get anything it was 35 minutes.”
It seems tourists would have been a bigger nuisance to the Caughrons, but Rex said the only time the gawkers were much of an issue was when it was time to put up hay and the tractors needed to use the Loop Road.
“Tourists didn’t bother us except in hay time on the Loop. They wasn’t in no hurry but we were,” he said. “If you were stopped working on the fence, they would stop and talk occasionally.”
The tourist would prove a source of amusement.
“The funniest thing, we were working right past dad’s house on the fence, a lady came around the curve and saw a bunch of vultures. She started shouting ‘Look at the turkeys,’ and she drove into a culvert,” he said. “We helped her out but her calling a vulture a turkey, that was funny to us.”
Of course, before the Loop Road was paved, it caused trouble for more than just the tourists.
Rex told of a time when his dad was younger and there was just an old primitive rock road. The mail carrier John W. Oliver – who later sued the government in a failed attempt to keep his land – got stuck trying to get the mail truck over a large hill.
Kermit said he heard the mailman, who was also a Baptist preacher, calling him for help. Kermit pushed the mail up the hill, only to fail to make the top and watch it come back down. After three attempts, Oliver told Caughron to go fetch the team and pull him over the hill.
Once the team was attached and pulled the preacher over the hill, Oliver reached in his pocket and gave Kermit a dime for his effort.
“Dad told him. ‘I believe you need it more than I do,’” Rex laughed.
Oliver more than evened the score, however. Oliver was the one who brought rainbow trout fingerlings and put them in Abrams Creek. Kermit pulled his share of 20-inch trout out of the cold mountain stream over the years.
“Dad enjoyed fishing more than hunting,” Rex said.
Living in the mountains wasn’t all work
Caughron said they’d often hike up to Abrams Falls.
“Another hike I liked was into Sugar Cove, above Mill Creek. Becky Cable had an orchard up there before my time,” he said. “I enjoyed that hike. It wasn’t a strenuous hike, but you wouldn’t run into nobody.”
Though his dad spent a lot of time at Gregory Bald herding cattle as a young man, Rex said he never much liked that hike himself.
“I only made it to Gregory three times in my life,” he said. “It wasn’t that hard of a walk, but I didn’t enjoy going to Gregory Bald.”
He said those who visit the Cove would do well to get off the paved path.
“There’s a lot of good views,” he said, “if you get down off the Loop Road, if you get down by the creek.”
His favorite view, though, is right at the entrance to the Cove, a place he calls Horseshoe Mountain.
“Look to the left, look right over the stables and you can see it,” he said. “It looks like a horseshoe. They don’t call it a horseshoe, though. They call it Mollies Butt.”
“I like to stand there and just look.”
Who was the last person to live in Cades Cove?
Kermit Caughron died in April of 1999. He was the last resident of Cades Cove.
The evidence of most of Kermit’s existence has been erased from the Cove.
The cattle, a staple of Cove visits of my youth, are gone. So is Kermit’s house, which he built in 1952 with materials salvaged from the old Cable School which themselves had been salvaged from the earlier Laurel Springs school.
Some of the older buildings on the property, the smokehouse and the original cabin, remain.
However, park officials wanted to take the Cove back to its earlier roots, more like the world of Kermit’s parents and their parents than his own.
Marking the spot where Kermit and Lois lived now is an old apple tree and a handful of lilies that bloom in the spring.
Why is Cades Cove famous?
Today, Cades Cove is one of the most popular destinations for visitors to the Smoky Mountains.
Guests come to the Cove to explore cabins, churches, the grist mill and view wildlife. They can drive the Cades Cove Loop Road, view log homes and get a glimpse of what life might have been like for the early settlers in the mountains.
Read More…
The Fight for Cades Cove and the People Who Refused to Leave
It turns out, not everyone was thrilled when the land became government property
When touring Cades Cove today, we see one of nature’s true holy places. The verdant valley with its fields and streams, is surrounded by the high mountains.
It’s a place of wonder and we rejoice that our forebearers nearly 100 years ago sought to preserve for us. But, as someone who went to school with members of the last family to live in the Cove, I can tell you there’s more to this story.
Before the park, the Cove was a larger community of people than you’d think by looking at the few frontier buildings left. I can tell you that while many were glad to take the government’s buyout and strike out for someplace less remote, many fought to stay.
While the National Park has proven to be a boon for the region – and the country as a whole, it came at a price for the people who’d settled there. For an outsider on a tour of Cades Cove, it may seem like a paradise. But before it was protected for future generations, it was a living, breathing and often complicated community with its own way of life. A way that was lost when the Park came in.
IN THIS ARTICLE
Cades Cove Before the Government Took It
John Oliver was the first European-descended settler in what became known as Cades Cove in 1819. He, his wife and young child survived thanks in large part to the native peoples for whom the Cove was a hunting ground.
He was followed by other settlers who cleared lands for farming, and built log homes, barns and more. This era is chiefly preserved in the park though the churches that serve as a reminder that Cades Cove became a larger community.
The early settlers planted orchards and grew corn in the Coves’ fertile lands. Within 30 years of Oliver’s arrival, the population neared 700 people thanks to large families like the Shields. Frederick Shields, one of the early residents of the Cove fathered 16 children, 13 of which lived to adulthood.
In addition to the churches, the community had schools, houses and even a post office, grist mill and general store.
A few years ago, I spoke with Rex Caughron, whose dad Kermit was the Cove’s last resident. Rex was raised in the cove, as were his daughters.
He told me a little about what life was like in the Smokies in the early 1900s before the park. Kermit was born in the Cove in 1912.
As a young man, he’d spend summers up in the high mountains near the Carolina border, herding livestock up near where you’d find the Appalachian Trail today. The Cove back then, was quite different.
“Whenever he came up, it wasn’t a park. They could rabbit hunt and there wasn’t deer or bears, Rex said. “The deer didn’t show up until the late 50s.” While they didn’t have deer, in a 1975 interview, Kermit explained bears could be a danger to livestock.“Used to, when one got in, why we come down here, and we’d get up a crew of hunters, you know, and dogs and go back up there and kill it,” Kermit said. “There wasn’t any open season or closed season. Why, one killed a cow, why, a calf, why, we killed a bear, then had a feast.”
Why Did They Build The Park?
But the Smokies – the natural wonder of the mountains – were endangered. Loggers were causing havoc, taking forests at unsustainable rates.
Don’t forget that the Sinks waterfalls were created in part when loggers tried to break up a jam on the Little River. They used so much dynamite, they changed the course of the river forever.
In addition, monied people were buying up land and creating getaways for the rich and influential. The push for the creation of the park began picking up steam in the 1920s though writers and naturalists like Horace Kephart who had started the push years earlier.
In 1926, President Calvin Coolidge signed the bill to establish the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Tennessee and North Carolina donated 300,000 acres and a fund was created to raise funds to buy the rest of the land from the people living on it. John D. Rockefeller donated half – $5 million – of the money raised to buy private lands.
How Some Residents Fought Back
Some were happy to take the money and strike out for a new life. Others? Not so much.
For instance, a sign was placed at the entrance to the Cove warning Col. Chapman, president of the Great Smoky Mountain Preservation Association, not to get any closer to the Cove than Knoxville.
“Col. Chapman, you and host are notified. Let the Cove people alone. Get out. Get gone. 40 mile limit.”
John Oliver’s descendant John W. Oliver sued several times to keep from having to sell his land. Of course, most eventually sold.
A dedicated few, however, like the Walker sisters, negotiated a lower price selling price in exchange for the right to live on the land for the rest of their lives.
Kermit tried to leave. He took the sale and moved to Maryville, even trying to work at Alcoa. But he felt hemmed in.
Much to the chagrin of his wife, Lois, Kermit negotiated his return to the Cove and spent the rest of his life living there under a series of five-year leases. He became known as the bee man, selling honey in the park for $1 a jar on the honor system.
Rex was raised in the park during the transition. He had a front-row seat for the changes.
“I’ve seen a lot of changes,” he said. “When I started school, there were 27 in my class.
When I graduated, in 1962, there were only three.” Later, Rex was able to get his five-year lease and raised his daughters there, working the land and raising livestock. They were the last generation raised in the park.
“It’s where I made a living, where I raised four girls,” he said. “How quiet it was at night, and the stars, that’s another thing that stood out to me. You didn’t have no street lights, didn’t have no people.”
Cades Cove Today
Today, Cades Cove is one of the most popular destinations in the park.
Its natural beauty and preserved history make it a wonderful place for hiking, fishing, exploring and more.
It’s a great picnic spot and there’s a campground just outside the Cove. The preserved buildings and homesteads provide an insight into what life was like in the 1800s but not so much when Kermit or Rex lived there.
It’s a perfect spot for wildlife viewing or to just go enjoy the peace of nature – provided the other tourists don’t get too wild.
You can find it from the Townsend entrance to the National Park by turning right at the Townsend Wye.
It is accessible from Gatlinburg by taking Little River Gorge Road through the Wye onto Laurel Creek Road. You can’t miss it.
Cades Cove is one of the premier destinations in the Smokies. It’s beautiful, full of wildlife and history.
Despite the hardships that would have come with life in the Cove, it’s easy to see why families fought to stay.
Beyond legacy, it’s simply one of the most beautiful places on Earth and would be something akin to paradise if you value mountain peace and beauty and don’t mind hard work or modern comforts.