| Sources |
- [S27] The Daily Times, http://www.thedailytimes.com/, (Blount County, Tennessee), 1 Mar 2009.
Blount County has always had key role in Great Smokies Park
Blount County's importance in the formation of Great Smoky Mountains National Park is far too often overlooked. As the Park celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, it is a good opportunity to take a look at some of the key contributions.
First of all, Blount Countians gave up their homes and fields in Cades Cove which today is considered the "gem" of the Smokies. The Cove, with more than 2 million visitors annually, has more visits than all but nine or 10 of the national parks.
Second, one of the people considered among the key "fathers of the park" was Ben Morton, Knoxville mayor and native Blount Countian.
The park includes about 30 percent of the area of Blount County and the Blount County portion amounts to about 20 percent of the park area. The Cove includes 6,853 acres below 2,000 feet in elevation of which 2,200 acres is open space. Settlement became legal in 1819 as a result of Indian treaties. Peak population of the Cove was 685 about 1850.
Few, if any, who had to leave Cades Cove wanted to go. A pretty well self-sustained community, it had its own telephone system in the late 1890s although it lacked an outside connection. It had its own churches and schools and almost had its own high school.
They had row crops and pastures and cattle were plentiful in the Cove. While some of its cattle were pastured on Gregory and other balds in the summer time, many of the cattle that grazed on the balds during summer months were from the Maryville-Alcoa area and some reportedly were herded to the mountain peaks from as far away as Knoxville.
Originally the Park Service planned to let the Cove revert to forest after it became a park. That would have destroyed most of its appeal. Then Daily Times Publisher Tutt S. Bradford and Carlos C. Campbell, author of "Birth of a National Park," headed a local effort which lobbied the Park Service to preserve the Cove as it was. Finally, it was agreed that it would be preserved in the Master Plan as a historical district within the park.
For many years that was done and as had long been done in the past, cattle grazed in the Cove year around. Much of the appeal of Cades Cove, which boosted it from fewer than 150,000 visits a year in the 1960s to the more than 2 million in recent years, was from cattle and deer grazing together in newly mown fields with mountain peaks in the background. Management decisions and perhaps failure to resolve the environmental concerns of cattle waste going into the streams led to the removal of the cattle and considerable of the Cove's historical accuracy as well as appeal. It is our opinion it has led to less daytime visibility of deer who may have felt some protection from predators with the cattle around.
One of the sore spots for many former Cove residents has been the Park Service decision to protect cabins of a much later date at Elkmont while the Park Service allowed most of the historic structures in Cades Cove to reach the point they had to be removed from lack of maintenance. The Elkmont settlement within the park was mostly summer homes of well-to-do Knoxville residents who came there when the only access was via Little River Lumber Company's Little River Railroad which operated only while the park area was being logged from about 1901 to 1939.
Dr. Benjamin A. Morton, a Blount native, was the father of twice-elected Knoxville Mayor Ben Morton, whose influence and Knoxville money was very important in the founding of the Park. Official date of the park establishment is June 15, 1934.
Dr. Morton's other children were Dr. John H. Morton of Knoxville, James F. Morton of Knoxville, Naomi Morton, Sarah, who married Dr. A. B. McTeer of Maryville, and Mollie who married H. T. Hackney Jr., founder of the wholesale grocery company.
Dr. Morton's life was unusually frugal and filled with achievement. He was the sixth son in a family of 15 children which was poor but industrious. He was crippled but attended a school near his home. At 21, he began studies at Maryville College. Too poor to buy candles, he hauled pine from the country to provide light for studying. His diet consisted mostly of cornbread and water sweetened with molasses. To supplement his income, he often taught a term in local schools.
He attended medical school in Nashville after which he began his practice at Gamble's Station on Little River, near the present Heritage High area. He married Martha McCamy and was in easy circumstances when the Civil War broke out. His intense loyalty to the Union caused him to leave the state, spending the war years in Illinois, as related in Volume I of the Daily Times' "Snapshots of Blount County History."
When the war ended, Dr. Morton was left with little but his home. He worked hard and was getting well established when the Little River flood of 1868 carried away his office, medical library, implements and medicine. Most of his household goods were also destroyed.
Again, Dr. Morton started over but soon moved to Maryville where a fire broke out in his home and, again destroying everything needed for his medical practice. He also lost most of his household furnishings. He narrowly escaped with his life, being seriously injured by smoke inhalation. These reverses did not conquer his indomitable will and he rose above the losses.
He had joined Six Mile Baptist Church as a young man. When he moved to Maryville and found there was no Baptist Church, he taught a Sunday school class in his home then as it grew it met in the courthouse until rowdies in the town ran him out. At his own expense, he provided New Testaments for those attending and resumed teaching at his home on Sundays. This group led to the founding of First Baptist Church of Maryville.
Dr. Morton obviously had provided a lot of medical care to Cades Cove residents. When his son, Mayor Ben Morton came to Cades Cove in the early 1930s seeking to encourage residents to accept the offers for their homes and land, he found a welcome audience when he was introduced as "Doc Morton's son." One resident warmly welcoming him, said "The bees swarmed eight times at our house, and Dr. Morton was there every time." The term "bees swarming" was commonly used in referring to the birth of a child. He was able to convince many residents to accept offers for their property.
Today, Blount County reaps a good harvest of tax revenue and business from tourism, largely because of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The economic impact of tourism is about $276 million annually.
And, as it was in the beginning, Blount County is a big part of Great Smoky Mountains National Park!
- [S101] 1880 Census, Maryville, Blount County, Tennessee, 141C.
Name Relation Marital Status Gender Race Age Birthplace Occupation Father's Birthplace Mother's Birthplace
Benj. MORTON Self M Male W 49 TN Physician TN TN
Martha MORTON Wife M Female W 43 TN Keeping House TN NC
Mary MORTON Dau Female W 18 TN At Home TN TN
John MORTON Son Male W 16 IL Works On Farm TN TN
Magnolia MORTON Dau S Female W 10 TN TN TN
Naomi MORTON Dau S Female W 7 TN TN TN
Benj. MORTON Son S Male W 5 TN TN TN
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