A Brief History of Gatlinburg , Tennessee
Around 1802, while hunting and trapping in the valley of the Little Pigeon River, William Ogle decided to make this area his home. He cut and stacked the logs for his new home and then returned to South Carolina to retrieve his family and start a new life here. He had told his family he had found the “Land of Paradise”. Unfortunately, William was taken ill and died before he could return. In a strange but brave move, his widow, Martha Jane Husky Ogle brought her seven children with her to finish the cabin that her husband had started. She was accompanied by her Brother, Peter Husky and his family. Together they found the logs that William had cut, and they built the first home in the area they called White Oaks Flats, for the abundant native white oak trees covering the landscape. Noah Ogle was White Oaks Flats first merchant of record, establishing a store in 1850 on a site that later became the Riverside
There are many stories as to how Gatlinburg got its name, all involving a controversial figure who settled here in 1854.
Radford C. Gatlin opened the town's second general store and when the post office was established in his store, in 1856, the town name changed to Gatlinburg. He was flamboyant and, as a preacher, established his own "Gatlinite" Baptist Church. He was a democrat in a republican community, and was eventually banished from the area. Some say it was his feud with the Ogles that got him banished from the town.
Back to the Ogle' story. In 1910, Noah Ogle moved his store to the intersection of River Road and the Elkmont Highway. Ephraim E. Ogle took over his father's store around 1916; and until 1925, the E. E. Ogle and Company store housed the Gatlinburg Post Office. Grandson, Charlie A. Ogle, and great grandson, Charles Earl Ogle, continued the family tradition. Through the years the store expanded, as new merchandise was added. You could purchase almost anything in that store, from hairpins to threshing machines, "if they could find it." The quaint old general store and adjacent tourist cabins were torn down in the mid 1970s to make way for the Mountain Mall. The Ogles, descended from the area's first settlers, have played a major role in the city's development.