Townsend is a city in
Blount County, Tennessee
Blount County is a County (United States), county located in the East Tennessee Grand Divisions of Tennessee, Grand Division of the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 135,280. The count ...
. The city was chartered in 1921 by persons who were involved with the Little River Railroad and Lumber Company. The population was 550 at the
2020 census.
For thousands of years a site of Native American occupation by varying cultures, Townsend is one of three "gateways" to the
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States in the southeastern United States, southeast, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline o ...
. It has several museums and attractions relating to the natural and human history of the Great Smokies.
History
Native Americans were the first inhabitants of Tuckaleechee Cove on the Little River; the oldest
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
finds in the cove date to 2000 B.C. A number of pottery fragments and ax heads dating to the
Woodland period
In the classification of :category:Archaeological cultures of North America, archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 BC to European contact i ...
have also been found. By 1200 A.D., Tuckaleechee's Native American inhabitants had built a fortified village near the cove's northern entrance.
The
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...
arrived in the area around 1600, and built a series of small villages along Little River. The name "Tuckaleechee" is from the Cherokee ''Tikwalitsi'', and its original meaning is unknown.
[James Mooney, ''Myths of the Cherokee and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee'' (Nashville: Charles Elder, 1972), 534.] A branch of the
Great Indian Warpath
The Great Indian Warpath (GIW)—also known as the Great Indian War and Trading Path, or the Seneca Trail—was part of the network of trails in eastern North America developed and used by Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans w ...
forked at this site, with one branch heading west to the
Overhill towns along the
Little Tennessee River and another heading south to
North Carolina
North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...
.
19th-century
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
James Mooney
James Mooney (February 10, 1861 – December 22, 1921) was an American ethnographer who lived for several years among the Cherokee. Known as "The Indian Man", he conducted major studies of Southeastern Indians, as well as of tribes on the Great ...
recounted an attempted raid on the Cherokee villages in Tuckaleechee by the
Shawano (Shawnee) in the mid-18th century. The raid was thwarted when a Cherokee conjurer named Deadwood Lighter envisioned the position of the Shawano ambush. The Cherokee surprised the raiders from the rear, killing many of them and chasing the rest back over the crest of the Smokies.
[Mooney, page 374.]
By the time the first Euro-American settlers arrived in Tuckaleechee in the late 18th century, the Cherokee had abandoned these villages. They moved south and west to evade encroachment by the colonists.
[Tennessee Historical Commission marker IE 15 along US-321, Townsend, Tennessee. Information accessed in August 2007.]
In 1843, humorist
George Washington Harris published an account of a country dance held that year in Tuckaleechee ("Tuck-a-lucky") Cove on the farm of "Capt. Dillon."
Moonshine
Moonshine is alcohol proof, high-proof liquor, traditionally made or distributed alcohol law, illegally. The name was derived from a tradition of distilling the alcohol (drug), alcohol at night to avoid detection. In the first decades of the ...
, cornbread, eggs and ham were served, and revelers danced to music provided by a fiddle-and-
dulcimer
The term dulcimer refers to two families of musical string instruments.
Hammered dulcimers
The word ''dulcimer'' originally referred to a trapezoidal zither similar to a psaltery whose many strings are struck by handheld "hammers". Variants of ...
duo. To win dance partners, the men engaged in a display of "feats of strength", while the women
quilted.
The exiled Irish patriot and Young Irelander
John Mitchel
John Mitchel (; 3 November 1815 – 20 March 1875) was an Irish nationalism, Irish nationalist writer and journalist chiefly renowned for his indictment of British policy in Ireland during the years of the Great Famine (Ireland), Great Famin ...
lived and farmed here with his family for some years in the late 1850s. A Tennessee Historical Commission marker dedicated to him is located near the intersection of US 321 and SR 73.
Logging industry
In the 1880s, the lumber industry experienced a boom, aided by two key innovations – the
bandsaw
A bandsaw (also written band saw) is a power saw with a long, sharp blade consisting of a continuous band of toothed metal stretched between two or more wheels to cut material. They are used principally in woodworking, metalworking, and lum ...
and the logging railroad. Flatland forest resources in the
Ohio Valley
The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its mouth on the Mississippi River in Cairo, ...
and along the
Mississippi Delta
The Mississippi Delta, also known as the Yazoo–Mississippi Delta, or simply the Delta, is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi (and portions of Arkansas and Louisiana) that lies between the Mississippi and Yazo ...
were quickly exhausted by the high demand for wood for fuel for steamboats. Logging firms began turning to the untapped resources of more mountainous areas.
[Michael Frome, ''Strangers in High Places: The Story of the Great Smoky Mountains'' (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994), 165–166.]
In 1900, hoping to capitalize on the near
virgin forest
An old-growth forest or primary forest is a forest that has developed over a long period of time without Disturbance (ecology), disturbance. Due to this, old-growth forests exhibit unique ecological features. The Food and Agriculture Organizati ...
s of the Smokies, Colonel W.B. Townsend of
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Lancaster County (; ), sometimes nicknamed the Garden Spot of America or Pennsylvania Dutch Country, is a County (United States), county in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 United States ...
purchased of land along the Little River, stretching from Tuckaleechee Cove all the way to
Kuwohi
Kuwohi (, also known as Clingmans Dome, its former official name) is a mountain in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina in the Southeastern United States.
At an topographical summit, elevation of , it is the highest mountai ...
. The following year, Townsend incorporated the Little River Lumber Company. The community that developed around his bandsaw mill in Tuckaleechee became named after him. Townsend also incorporated the
Little River Railroad to both transport the wood products to market, as well as (after about 1909) tourists escaping the summer heat of
Knoxville
Knoxville is a city in Knox County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the Tennessee River and had a population of 190,740 at the 2020 United States census. It is the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division ...
to a resort town he developed in the cleared land,
Elkmont. The railroad connected the sawmill with
Walland to the west, and followed the Little River upstream to the southeast (Elkmont being about 5 miles from Kuwohi and near the Little River's headwaters).
Townsend quickly profited from the forests of the Little River bottomlands. In 1916, he reported that Little River Lumber's consistently high rate of planks per acre showed no sign of decline. A single giant
chestnut
The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.
Description
...
tree in the Smokies could yield 18,000 planks of lumber. Townsend's success led to a rapid expansion of logging operations throughout the Smokies.
By the time the park was formed in the 1930s, nearly two-thirds of area forests had been cut down, and park managers have worked to restore the forests.
The rapid destruction of the forests of southern
Appalachia
Appalachia ( ) is a geographic region located in the Appalachian Mountains#Regions, central and southern sections of the Appalachian Mountains in the east of North America. In the north, its boundaries stretch from the western Catskill Mountai ...
led to increased efforts by conservationists to slow or halt logging operations. Col. Townsend initially opposed the effort, but after some wavering, sold at base price of his Little River Lumber tract in 1926 to what would eventually become the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Townsend lived near Elkmont in a now-historic Swiss-style chalet he called Spindle Top, where he would die in 1936.
Although some predicted that the loss of the lumber industry would doom Tuckaleechee, the explosion in tourism as a result of the park's founding contributed to the area economy, keeping it relatively healthy,
[Frome, page 192.] even though the first resort hotel (Appalachian Club) burned in 1932 (and was restored) and the other, the historic Wonderland Hotel at Elkmont collapsed in 2005 and arson destroyed the remainder (and some historic cottages) in 2017.
Geography
Townsend is located in eastern Blount County. It is situated in Tuckaleechee Cove, one of several "
limestone windows" that dot the northern base of the Smokies. These windows form when erosional forces carry away the older rocks (mostly
sandstone
Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...
), exposing the younger rock below (i.e.,
limestone
Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...
).
[Harry Moore, ''A Roadside Guide to the Geology of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park'' (]Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville is a city in Knox County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the Tennessee River and had a population of 190,740 at the 2020 United States census. It is the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division ...
: University of Tennessee Press
The University of Tennessee Press is a university press associated with the University of Tennessee.
UT Press was established in 1940 by the University of Tennessee Board of Trustees.
The University of Tennessee Press issues about 35 books each ...
, 1988), 33. Limestone windows are normally flatter than other mountainous valleys, and are typically coated with rich, fertile soil.
Other limestone windows in the area include
Cades Cove, Wear Cove, and Jones Cove. Tuckaleechee Cove is situated between Bates Mountain to the north and Rich Mountain to the south, with the cove's greater population estimated at around 1,500. The
Little River, its source high in the mountains on the north slopes of
Kuwohi
Kuwohi (, also known as Clingmans Dome, its former official name) is a mountain in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina in the Southeastern United States.
At an topographical summit, elevation of , it is the highest mountai ...
,
slices east-to-west through Tuckaleechee and drains much of the cove. The city of Townsend dominates the eastern half of Tuckaleechee.
According to the
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
, the city has a total area of , all land.
As of 2004, annexation had considerably increased the size of the town to its current size. Townsend is included in the
Knoxville
Knoxville is a city in Knox County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the Tennessee River and had a population of 190,740 at the 2020 United States census. It is the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division ...
Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Climate
Demographics
2020 census
As of the
2020 United States census, there were 550 people, 182 households, and 100 families residing in the city.
2000 census
As of the
census
A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...
of 2000, there were 244 people, 124 households, and 80 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 217 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 97.95%
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, 1.23%
Native American and 0.82%
Asian.
There were 124 households, out of which 15.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 58.9% were
married couples
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...
living together, 3.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.7% were non-families. 33.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 23.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.97 and the average family size was 2.44.
In the city, the population was spread out, with 12.3% under the age of 18, 2.5% from 18 to 24, 19.3% from 25 to 44, 36.5% from 45 to 64, and 29.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 56 years. For every 100 females, there were 86.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 86.1 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $36,250, and the median income for a family was $50,000. Males had a median income of $41,071 versus $29,375 for females. The
per capita income
Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year.
In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...
for the city was $21,647. About 5.9% of families and 12.1% of the population were below the
poverty line
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...
, including 7.7% of those under the age of eighteen and 11.5% of those 65 or over.
Transportation
U.S. 321, also known as
Lamar Alexander
Andrew Lamar Alexander Jr. (born July 3, 1940) is an American politician and attorney who served as a United States senator from Tennessee from 2003 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, he also was the 45th governor of Tennessee from 1 ...
Parkway and Wears Valley Road, is the main highway connecting Townsend with Walland (and eventually
Maryville) to the northwest and
Pigeon Forge
Pigeon Forge is a mountain resort city in Sevier County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 6,343 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Situated north of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Pigeon Forge is a tourist destinatio ...
(via
Wears Valley) to the east-northeast, where it intersects
U.S. 441. Near the eastern end of Townsend, U.S. 321 tees north and then curves northeast, while
Tennessee 73 continues straight and then turns southeast and heads straight into the
national park
A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...
. This road eventually intersects Little River Road at a popular swimming area known as "The Y". From this intersection,
Cades Cove is to the west, and the
Sugarlands
The Sugarlands is a valley in Tennessee within the north-central Great Smoky Mountains, located in the southeastern United States. Formerly home to a string of small Appalachian communities, the valley is now the location of the Great Smoky Mou ...
and Gatlinburg are roughly to the east.
Recreation
Townsend is home to the
Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center, which preserves various aspects of the region's history, and the
Little River Railroad and Lumber Company Museum, which recounts the area's logging history. Next to the heritage center is the new
National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...
Collections Preservation Center, which archives items from all of the national park units in the area (though not open to the public).
Tuckaleechee Caverns
Tuckaleechee Caverns () is a tourist attraction and the largest and highest rated cave or cavern by AAA east of the Mississippi River. Tuckaleechee runs under the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to Townsend, Tennessee. The caverns were used ...
– a mile-long cave system that reaches depths of up to – is also nearby.
Just to the north and west of Townsend, the
Foothills Parkway is a
national parkway that traverses
Chilhowee Mountain and offers multiple
scenic overlooks at high
elevation
The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...
s, with views of the Smokies to the south and the
Tennessee Valley
The Tennessee Valley is the drainage basin of the Tennessee River and is largely within the U.S. state of Tennessee. It stretches from southwest Kentucky to north Alabama and from northeast Mississippi to the mountains of Virginia and North C ...
and
Cumberland Plateau
The Cumberland Plateau is the southern part of the Appalachian Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. It includes much of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and portions of northern Alabama and northwest Georgia. The terms " Al ...
to the north and west. ,
road construction
A road is a thoroughfare used primarily for movement of traffic. Roads differ from streets, whose primary use is local access. They also differ from stroads, which combine the features of streets and roads. Most modern roads are paved.
The ...
on the parkway to complete the "missing link" from Walland to Wears Valley can be seen from Townsend during the mid-day and afternoon. This section eventually opened in late 2018, more than half a century after the first section opened in 1966.
Townsend is also home to a
Kampgrounds of America
KOA (short for Kampgrounds of America) is an American franchise of privately owned campgrounds. Having more than 500 locations across the United States and Canada, it is the world's largest system of privately owned campgrounds. It was founded ...
.
See also
*''
Christy (TV series)
''Christy'' is an American period drama series that aired on CBS from April 1994 to August 1995 for twenty episodes."One Week Out: Events coming next weekend," ''The Daily Times'' (Maryville, TN), June 13, 2008, Weekend section: ''"Although Cut ...
''
*
Music of East Tennessee
References
External links
*
Convention and Visitors BureauChamber of Commerce
{{authority control
Cities in Blount County, Tennessee
Cities in Tennessee
Communities of the Great Smoky Mountains
Knoxville metropolitan area