Interesting Historic Figures Who Visited the Smokies

These key figures in history crossed paths with the Smoky Mountains

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of the most visited places in the world. In fact, the mountains’ natural beauty, tourist friendly towns and interstate friendly location provide the perfect destination for a quick getaway or a longer trip.

As such, it makes sense that from time-to-time famous people or historically important people would make their way to the mountains either for business or for a getaway.

Over the years we’ve seen big stars like Channing Tatum and Jason Momoa pop up randomly in the Smokies, but my absolute favorite unexpected appearance is a celebrity of another sort.

During a show at the Tennessee Theater in Knoxville, music icon Weird Al Yankovic was bantering in between songs. He said that he had spent the previous day exploring Pigeon Forge. I’m not sure if Al was kidding because he thought Pigeon Forge made a good punch line or if they really spent the day taking in the sights. That said, I’m immensely charmed by the thought of Al knocking around Dollywood incognito, eating cinnamon bread and riding the Wild Eagle. Maybe swinging by Goats on the Roof later for souvenirs.

But believe it or not, Al isn’t the most historically important person to visit the Smokies. He’s close. He doesn’t crack the top 8, anyway.

Historic figures who came close to the Smokies but are not documented as having actually visited.

Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stopped in Chattanooga during his tour of the U.S. in which he was eventually gifted a turkey in Miami. I expect Georgia native Martin Luther King Jr. also spent significant time in Chattanooga, but we know for sure he studied at the Highlander Institute in Grundy County, northwest of Chattanooga, along with several other Civil Rights leaders. Mark Twain had family connections in Fentress County, northeast of Nashville.

We can also count the three Tennessee presidents, Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk and Andrew Johnson – not exactly a murderer’s row of presidential greatness – as historically important figures who have been in the Smokies. However, due to their residents of Tennessee status, we can’t count them as visitors.

This also eliminates our beloved Queen Dolly Parton.

We’re also eliminating more modern historical figures like presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden or Donald Trump. Certain these figures are historical but modern times make their appearance in or near the mountain less noteworthy.

Interesting Historic figures who have visited the Smokies:

1. Babe Ruth

George Herman Ruth – possibly the most famous human in the world at the time – played multiple exhibition games in the region including in Knoxville against the Smokies and in Asheville, North Carolina.

But perhaps the Bambino’s most famous mountain visit was the “Bellyache Heard Round the World.” The year was 1925 and Ruth had been reportedly battling through high fevers during spring training. He collapsed at the train station in Asheville following an exhibition game. Newspapers in Canada, Scotland, London and Belfast even reported the legend had died. Ruth was hospitalized and operated on, and rumors persisted that he might never play again.

More rumors spread that Ruth had fallen ill after eating a dozen hotdogs or was receiving treatment for an STD. The truth seems to be that Ruth’s love of alcohol – much of it homemade – led to intestinal issues and an abscess that had to be treated. Did Ruth get ahold of some bad moonshine in the mountains? Possibly, but that wouldn’t have caused the issue. More likely months and years of drinking bathtub gin finally caught up with the Sultan of Swat.

2. FDR

This one shouldn’t be a shocker. FDR famously dedicated the park on Sept. 2, 1940. But four years earlier – in 1936 – he was driven from Knoxville to Asheville through the mountains touring the area that would become the National Park. He stopped in Sylva, North Carolina where as many as 10,000 were there to see him.

There was also a picnic lunch on Kuwohi – then known as Clingman’s Dome. He visited with the leaders of the Cherokee Nation and was made an honorary member. And he dined in Asheville with his son at the Grove Park Inn. There is no word whether he got ahold of any illicit Hooch.

3. Amelia Earhart

In the same year as FDR took his drive through the mountains, famed aviator Amelia Earhart crossed the new and rugged roads of the Smokies. Though in true Earhart fashion, she drove herself and did it alone.

Her appearance was done in support of the National Park. While the exact dates of her time in Knoxville and the Smokies aren’t known, it was roughly a year later – July 2, 1937 – that she disappeared forever over the Pacific Ocean.

4. Hernando De Soto

For the record, we said historically significant – not good. A conquistador, De Soto was by all accounts a vicious and brutal man.

“While other Spaniards traded with the Indians, de Soto stole what he wanted, including precious stores of corn. He abducted Indian women for his soldiers and forced native men to haul his supplies. He humiliated chiefs by kidnapping them as guarantee for safe passage through their territory. As a final symbol of conquest, he planted Christian crosses in village plazas or atop the Indians’ sacred mounds,” the National Park Service writes.

De Soto traveled through the Smokies in the spring of 1540 in search of gold, silver and other treasures. During this time, De Soto and his men became the first Europeans to make recorded contact with the Cherokee.

5. John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy was still a senator in 1959 when he visited the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His wife Jackie and Tennessee Senator Albert Gore Sr. joined him on the trip. The next year, he made a campaign stop at McGhee-Tyson Airport in Alcoa.

6. King Charles III

The King, formerly known as the Prince of Wales, visited the Biltmore Estate in Asheville in 1996.  The owner William Cecil – the grandson of the Biltmore’s creator – George Washington Vanderbilt hosted the future King. Cecil was educated in England and Switzerland and served in the British Navy toward the end of World War II.

7. Walter Cronkite

America’s most famous newsman, Walter Cronkite was something of an adventurer in his own right. According to a Saturday Evening Post story, Cronkite – who liked to drive in road rallies – was piloting a Triumph TR-3 in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee when he lost control, “pitched over an embankment and fell end over end into a lake 100 feet below.

Cronkite emerged wet but unhurt.” Curious about which lake America’s newsman had crashed into, I did a little further research indicating he’d gone off Route 64 near Benton down in Polk County, crashing into Ocoee Lake, meaning they were in the Cherokee National Forest and not the Smokies.

8. Walt Disney

While preparing for and filming Disney’s “Davy Crockett” series, Walt Disney and his wife Lillian spent about month in the Gatlinburg area in 1954. They were guests at the Buckhorn Inn and – according to the Buckhorn website – sent Christmas gifts to the children of founders Douglas and Aubrey Bebb for years after.

Parts of the Crockett series – which was later edited into a pair of movies – were filmed in the National Park. They set off a Davy Crockett craze across the country where coonskin caps and the “Ballad of Davy Crockett” ruled pop culture.

9. Harry Houdini

I didn’t find any direct evidence of Houdini in the Smokies, but he performed at the Bijou Theater in Knoxville – where I saw “Public Enemy” in the early 90s. He also performed in Johnson City in 1924, debunking spirit mediums and escaping from a straitjacket. It may have been part of his “Can the Dead Speak to the Living?” lecture.

While we don’t have a date for his Knoxville appearance he also appeared in Chattanooga and Asheville in 1924. It’s possible his itinerary would have taken him through the mountains.

10. King Leopold III of Belgium

It appears the future King Charles III isn’t the only royalty to have visited the mountains or adjacent. King Leopold the III – grandson of the genocidal King Leopold II – had abdicated his throne by the time he toured Oak Ridge – possibly with President Dwight Eisenhower – in 1957.

Leopold III – who came to Tennessee on a fact-finding mission about atomic power – had fallen out of favor with this people when he surrendered to Hitler’s Germany in 1940. The King of the Belgians determined his country was in no position to fight the Germans, but his actions were declared unconstitutional by the Belgian Prime Minister who was operating a government in exile in London.

Leopold’s brother was declared regent but when Leopold returned to the country in 1950, it nearly caused Civil War. He abdicated the throne to his son Baudouin in 1951. This explains why he was able to travel on behalf of his country to Oak Ridge in 1957.

Did you know about these historical visits? Let us know in the comments!