9-16NC
Logging in the Smokies Note Card
During the late 1800s, the most accessible trees in the Smoky Mountains, such as the ultra-valuable Cherry, Ash, Walnut, Hickory, and the giant Yellow-Poplar, or "Tulip Tree" were logged. Buckeye, Linden, Spruce, Hemlock, Pine, etc., were also harvested. The people who lived there did the logging and sawmilling; family enterprises. Then, adding to the economy of the area came the logging companies (i.e. The Little River Lumber Co., W.M. Ritter Lumber Co., Montvale Lumber Co., Norwood Lumber Co., Champion Coated Paper Co., and others), who were part of the lifestream of the Great Smoky Mountains. Logging reached its peak in about 1909.
Bulls, horses, and mules were used for transporting logs to the mills. Some splash dams were also used in those days. Little River Lumber Co., perhaps the most elaborate logging operation in the Smokies, used the chute (such as the one shown in this painting) to take logs to the mill.
Cherry was the most valuable wood. However, the most profitable of all saw timber was the Yellow-Poplar, that tall (80- to 150-ft.), straight, c1ear-trunked tree that attained diameters of 4- to 6-ft.
Logging in the Smokies came to a halt on March 30, 1931, when Champion Fibre Company, under hard-fought conditions, agreed to sell 90,000 acres of prime timberland to the federal government. On September 2, 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a part of Tennessee and North Carolina.
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