Cades Cove

Cades Cove is a limestone valley ringed by the high Smokies, and an eleven-mile one-way loop road circles it past log houses, barns, three churches and a gristmill. Cherokee (Tsalagi) people hunted here long before the farms, and the valley's Cherokee name, Tsiyahi, means "otter place." The Cherokee gave up their last claim to the Smokies in 1819, and in 1838 most were forced west to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears.

John Oliver and his family settled in the fall of 1818, and by 1850 the cove held 685 people. Baptist and Methodist congregations formed in the 1820s, schoolhouses followed, and the last school did not close until 1944. The Civil War divided a mostly Unionist community, and guerrilla bands from North Carolina raided it for food and valuables.

The park ended that life. Tennessee and North Carolina began buying land in 1927, and the whole cove was drawn into the park boundary despite earlier promises that it would be left alone. Some families sold. John W. Oliver, the first settler's grandson, fought the taking in court and lost on his third appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court. Others took life leases at lower prices and lived under Park Service rules. The cabins, mill and churches you pass survive because the park kept them, and most of the families who built them did not stay.