Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Logging and early preservation movements

While selective logging occurred in the Great Smoky Mountains throughout the 19th century, the general inaccessibility of the forests prevented major logging operations, and lumber firms initially relied on the lowland forests in the northeastern United States and the Mississippi Delta in the southeast. As timber resources in these regions became exhausted, and as the demand for lumber skyrocketed after the Civil War, entrepreneurs began looking for ways to reach the virgin forests of southern Appalachia. The first logging operations in the Smokies, which began in the 1880s, used splash dams or booms to float logs down rivers to lumber mills in nearby cities. Notable splash dam and boom operations included the English Lumber Company on Little River, the Taylor and Crate operations along Hazel Creek, and the ambitious operations of Alexander Arthur on the Pigeon River. All three of these operations failed within their first few years, however, after their dams and boom systems were destroyed by floods.

Innovations in logging railroads and band saw technology in the late 19th century made large-scale logging possible in the mountainous areas of southern Appalachia. The largest logging operation in the Smokies was the Little River Lumber Company, which logged the Little River watershed between 1901 and 1939. The firm constructed the Little River Railroad to haul timber out of the remote regions of the area, and established company towns at Townsend (named for the company's chief owner and manager, Col. Wilson B. Townsend), Elkmont, and Tremont. The Little River Railroad set an example for larger companies to also purchase land in the Smokies for logging. The second-largest logging operation was the Ritter Lumber Company, which logged the Hazel Creek watershed between 1907 and 1928. Ruins of Ritter's lumbering operations are still visible along the Hazel Creek Trail. Other lumbering operations included Three M Lumber and Champion Fibre, both of which logged the Oconaluftee watershed. Logging in the Smokies reached its peak in 1909, and by the time all operations ceased in the 1930s, logging firms had removed two-thirds of the virgin forests from the Smokies. According to the National Park Service, 80% of the Smokies was clear cut in the early 20th century.
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