| Sources |
- [S112] Census, 1920.
Name: Andrew J Huff
Residence: , Sevier, Tennessee
Estimated Birth Year: 1879
Age: 41
Birthplace: Tennessee
Relationship to Head of Household: Self
Gender: Male
Race: White
Marital Status: Married
Father's Birthplace: Tennessee
Mother's Birthplace: Tennessee
Film Number: 1821762
Digital Folder Number: 4390948
Image Number: 00417
Sheet Number: 5
Household Gender Age
Andrew J Huff M 41y
Spouse Martha J Huff F 43y
Child Carl E Huff M 16y
Child James N Huff M 13y
Child Stella S Huff F 11y
Child Mattie I Huff F 9y
Child Nancy B Huff F 6y
Bettie E Russell F 19y
Wiley N King M 23y
Joel King M 17y
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 5 Dec 2014.
Upland Chronicles: Mountain View was Gatlinburg’s first hotel
CARROLL MCMAHAN
Mountain View Hotel as it appeared in 1926, after the first expansion.
Andy and Martha Whaley Huff built the Mountain View Hotel.
In 1951, cars lined up in front of the Mountain View Hotel to transport the wives of governors who were in town to attend the Annual Governors Conference on a picnic in mountains
In 1916, Andy Huff built the Mountain View Hotel, a 10 unit, two-story building with one bathroom on each floor. He built the hostelry to provide lodging for the lumbermen coming to Gatlinburg to purchase timber. Returning home, these lumbermen told others of the beauty of the surrounding mountains. Soon residents of Knoxville began coming to the hotel for vacations.
Born July 27, 1878, in Greene County, Tennessee, Andrew Jackson Huff and his brother Francis Marion Huff came to Big Greenbrier Cove in 1900 to set up a sawmill. It was there that Andy met Martha Whaley, whom he married Aug. 28, 1905. They moved to Gatlinburg and rented a house where Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies is now located. Huff later purchased property on Baskin’s Creek, where he built a large home for his family of five children.
Due to the demand, Huff kept enlarging his small, rustic hotel. In 1924, he built the dining room wing with a new kitchen and additional guest rooms upstairs. In 1929 the original building was demolished, and a larger hotel was built with a beautiful lobby that included a splendid fireplace.
The Mountain View soon gained a reputation for fine dining as well as homelike accommodations. In fact, the dining room was listed in “Adventures in Good Eating,” a book published by Duncan Hines, the pioneer of restaurant ratings for travelers which highlighted restaurants and their featured dishes that Hines had personally enjoyed in locations across America.
Martha Huff was as much responsible for the fine food as her husband. The couple was always helping their neighbors. They often provided assistance to families who were struggling to feed large families, many of whom worked for Andy in one of his sawmills scattered throughout the mountains.
Andy Huff was a staunch supporter of the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Col. David Chapman, as well as Willis and Anne Davis, were frequent guests at the Mountain View. When government officials came to see the Smokies, Huff provided them lodging at the Mountain View and provided them with horses and food. In 1925, Assistant Director of the National Park Service Arno B. Cammerer came to Gatlinburg and stayed at the Mountain View, when he met with members of the Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association.
In 1931, the first park headquarters opened in a cottage on the grounds of the hotel where the assembly hall, Huff House, was later built. Huff also built a new house on the property for the first park superintendent, Major J. Ross Eakin.
Eleanor Roosevelt was a guest at the Mountain View in the late 1930s. Huff furnished a suite of rooms for her stay with all-new furniture. Jerry McCutchen was manager of the hotel at the time. McCutchen was in charge wiring the first lady’s newspaper column “My Day” to Western Union each day. Ernie Pyle, a widely known journalist who was a roving correspondent for the Scripps Howard newspaper chain, was another famous guest at the hotel when he visited Gatlinburg in 1940.
“In the old days there wasn’t any place around here for a stranger to stay, so Andy Huff put up wayfarers in his house. But the lumbermen who stayed with the Huffs liked it so well they’d bring their friends. That got to the point where they couldn’t all get in the Huff house,” Pyle wrote in one of his columns.
“So in 1916 Andy Huff built a frame hotel, which looked like a house, just to accommodate the lumbermen. He has been in the hotel business ever since. The old-time visitors to Gatlinburg always stayed with Andy Huff at his Mountain View Hotel. But it is no longer an amateur affair. It is a huge palace, sitting on a hillside, and they have served as many as 900 meals a day there.”
Founded in 1924, the Smoky Hiking Club often used the Mountain View to begin and end hikes in the early days of the club.
“We would return from our trip, hot and tired or in the winter, cold and hungry, we would find a hot supper waiting for us there at the hotel. Most of the time we would have country ham and hot biscuits and honey,” wrote photographer Dutch Roth. “On December 8, 1934, we had our annual Hiking Club banquet at the Mountain View Hotel in Gatlinburg. After a nice meal we had election of officers, and then we square danced till midnight. Then we gathered around a log fire in the lobby of the hotel and saw some movies and sang till 2 in the morning. After which we started on a mystery hike. We got back to the hotel about 4 A.M.”
On Oct. 1, 1951, the annual State Dinner held in conjunction with the 43rd Annual Governors’ Conference took place at the Mountain View Hotel. Purple cars left from the Mountain View and other Gatlinburg hotels for a picnic in the mountains for the governors’ wives.
Andy Huff died Dec. 13, 1949, and his son Jack resigned as manger of Mt. LeConte Lodge, which he established in 1926, to oversee the family businesses. Tom Woods became manager in 1946 and operated the hotel until 1985.
Although the Mountain View Hotel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, the storied old hotel was demolished in 1993 to make way for a short-lived amusement park.
Carroll McMahan is special projects facilitator for the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce and serves as Sevier County historian.
The Upland Chronicles series celebrates the heritage and past of Sevier County. If you have suggestions for future topics, would like to submit a column or have comments, please contact Carroll McMahan at 453-6411 or cmcmahan@scoc.org; or Ron Rader at 604-9161 or ron@ronraderproperties.com
- [S73] Rawlings Funeral Home, Book 2, 13 Dec 1949.
Huff, Andrew Jackson July 24, 1878 Green Co. Dec 13, 1949
Spouse: King, Mary
Father: Huff, Noah Greene Co Tn
Mother: Runner, Susan Tn
Sons: Jim, Jack
Daughters: Mrs. Bill Cox, Mrs. Ralph Lawson, Mrs. Jack Arthur
Cemetery: Gatlinburg Baptist
Brothers: Barney, Mosheim
Sisters: Mrs. W.L. Cooper, Mrs. L.L. Nease
- [S87] Death Certificate.
Name: Andrew Jackson Huff
Event: Death
Event Date: 13 Dec 1949
Event Place: Gatlinburg, Sevier, Tennessee
Gender: Male
Marital Status:
Race or Color:
Age: 71
Estimated Birth Year: 1878
Birth Date:
Birthplace:
Spouse:
Father: Noah Huff
Father's Birthplace:
Mother: Susan Runner
Mother's Birthplace:
Occupation:
Street Address:
Residence:
Cemetery:
Burial Place:
Burial Date:
Informant:
Additional Relatives:
Digital Folder Number: 4184545
Image Number: 161
Film Number: 2218318
Volume/Page/Certificate Number: 28135
- [S34] In the Shadow of the Smokies, Smoky Mountain Historical Society, (1993), 381, 572.
Death listed as 22 May 1949.
Buried in the White Oak Flats Cemetery, Gatlinburg, Sevier County, Tennessee but later moved to Smoky Mountain Memory Gardens
- [S147] Find a Grave, (Memorial: 8377765).
- [S58] Marriage Certificate.
Name: A J Huff
Event Type: Marriage
Event Date: 14 Jan 1936
Event Place: Cocke, Tennessee, United States
Spouse's Name: Mary King
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