Driving Around Gatlinburg, Tennessee in 4k Video

Filmed on Wednesday May 3, 2023, I drive around the unique tourist town Gatlinburg, TN to see what's going on.

If you would like to control the camera and take a look around, check out my 360° video tour of Gatlinburg:    • Driving Around Resort City Gatlinburg...  

Gatlinburg is a mountain resort city in Sevier County, Tennessee, United States. It is located 39 miles southeast of Knoxville.

For centuries, Cherokee hunters, as well as other Native American hunters before them, used a footpath known as the Indian Gap Trail to access the abundant game in the forests and coves of the Smokies. The highway connecting Gatlinburg, TN and Cherokee, NC through the Smokey Mountain National Park follows mostly the same path today.

Although various European and early American hunters and fur trappers probably traversed or camped in the flats where Gatlinburg is now situated, it was South Carolina native William Ogle who first decided to permanently settle in the area.

With the help of the Cherokee, Ogle cut, hewed, and notched logs in the flats, planning to erect a cabin the following year. He returned home to Edgefield to retrieve his family and grow one final crop for supplies. However, Ogle succumbed to Malaria in 1803.

Sometime around 1806, his widow Martha Huskey Ogle made the journey over Indian Gap Trail to what is now Gatlinburg with her brother, Peter Huskey, her daughter, Rebecca, and her daughter's husband, James McCarter. William Ogle's notched logs awaited them, and they erected a cabin near the confluence of Baskins Creek and the West Fork of the Little Pigeon shortly after their arrival. The cabin still stands today near the heart of Gatlinburg.

In the decade following the arrival of the Ogles, a steady stream of settlers moved into the area. Most were veterans of the American Revolution or War of 1812.

In 1856, a post office was established in the general store of Radford Gatlin, giving the town the name "Gatlinburg." Even though the town bore his name, Gatlin, who didn't arrive in the flats until around 1854, constantly bickered with his neighbors. By 1857, a full-blown feud had erupted between the Gatlins and the Ogles.

The eve of the U.S. Civil War found Gatlin, who became a Confederate sympathizer, at odds with the residents of the flats, who were mostly pro-Union, and he was forced out in 1859.

Andrew Jackson Huff was a pivotal figure in Gatlinburg. Huff erected a sawmill in 1900, and local residents began supplementing their income by providing lodging to loggers and other lumber company officials. Tourists began to trickle into the area, drawn by the beauty of the Smoky Mountains.

Extensive logging in the early 1900s led to increased calls by conservationists for federal action, and in 1911, Congress passed the Weeks Act to allow for the purchase of land for national forests.

Andrew Huff spearheaded the movement in the Gatlinburg area, and he opened the first hotel in Gatlinburg – the Mountain View Hotel – in 1916. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park opened in 1934.

The park radically changed Gatlinburg. In 1912, Gatlinburg was a small hamlet with six houses, a blacksmith shop, a general store, a Baptist church, and a greater community of 600 individuals, most of whom lived in log cabins. In 1934, the first year the park was open, an estimated 40,000 visitors passed through the city. Within a year, this number had increased over twelvefold to 500,000.

In 2016, sarting in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park at Chimney Tops, a moderately contained wildfire was compounded by very strong winds, causing it to spread down into Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Pittman Center, and other nearby areas. It forced mass evacuations, and Governor Bill Haslam ordered the National Guard to the area.

The center of Gatlinburg's tourist district escaped heavy damage, but the surrounding wooded region was called "the apocalypse". Approximately 14,000 people were evacuated that evening and more than 2,400 structures were damaged or destroyed. Fourteen people died in the fires – some local citizens and some visiting tourists.

In June 2017, the Sevier County district attorney dropped the charges against two juveniles accused of starting the fire due to an inability to prove their actions led to the devastation that occurred in Gatlinburg five days later.

As of the 2010 census, Gatlinburg had 3,944 people, 1,681 households, and 1,019 families residing in the city.

The racial makeup of the city was 85.3% White, 0.6% African American, 0.4% American Indian/Alaska Native, 2.8% Asian, 0.0% Pacific Islander, 8.9% from other races, and 1.9% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race accounted for 15% of the population.

The per capita income for the city was $24,423, and 15% of the population and 5.8% of families had income levels below the poverty line. 13.8% of those under the age of 18 and 8.3% of those 65 years and older were living below the poverty line. #driving #travel #drivingtour