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Townsend Tennessee is one of three gateways to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Called the "Peaceful side of the Smokies", Townsend has the least traffic of the park's three main entrances. The park's other two entrances— one just south of Gatlinburg and the other just north of Cherokee— are home to multiple commercial attractions that draw millions of tourists each year. Townsend is more low-key, with a handful of inexpensive restaurants and motels, and several businesses geared toward outdoor sports.
Townsend 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), exposing the younger rock below (i.e., limestone). Limestone windows are normally flatter than othermountainous 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. Little River, its source high in the mountains on the north slopes of Clingmans Dome,slices east-to-west through Tuckaleechee and drains much of the cove. The city of Townsend dominates the eastern half of Tuckaleechee.
Settled by the Cherokee Indians in the 1600's, by the time the first Euro-American settlers arrived in Tuckaleechee in the late 1700s, the Cherokee villages had been abandoned.
In the 1880's, the lumber industry experienced a boom, due largely to two key innovations— the band saw and the logging railroad. Flatland forest resources in the Ohio Valley and along the Mississippi Delta were quickly exhausted, and logging firms began turning more and more to the untapped resources of the more mountainous areas.
In 1900, hoping to capitalize on the thick virgin forests of the Smokies, Colonel W.B. Townsend of Pennsylvania purchased 86,000 acres (350 km˛) of land along Little River, stretching from Tuckaleechee Cove all the way to Clingmans Dome. The following year, Townsend received a charter for his new firm, theLittle River Lumber Company. A band saw mill was erected in Tuckaleechee, and Townsend gave his name to the community that grew in the mill's vicinity.
The Little River Railroad was constructed shortly thereafter, connecting the saw mill with Walland to the west, and following Little River all the way to Elkmont, to the southeast.
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 was showing no sign of decline. Indeed, a single giant chestnut tree in the Smokies could produce 18,000 planks of wood. Townsend's success led to a rapid expansion of logging operations throughout the Smokies. By the time the park was formed in the 1930's, nearly two-thirds of area forests had been cut down.
The rapid destruction of the forests of southern Appalachia 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 76,000 acres (310 km˛) of his Little River Lumber tract in 1926 to what would eventually become the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Although some predicted that the loss of the lumber industry would doom Tuckaleechee, the explosion in tourism as a result of the park's creation kept the area economy relatively healthy.
Present Day Townsend
Little River Tuckaleechee Road, which follows U.S. 321, is the main highway connecting Townsend with Walland (and eventually Maryville) to the northwest and Pigeon Forge (via Wears Valley) to the east, where it intersects U.S. 441. Near the eastern end of Townsend, SR73 turns southeast from US-321 and heads straight into the national park. This road eventually intersects Little River Road at a popular swimming area known as "The Y". From this intersection, Cades Cove is seven miles to the west, and the Sugarlands and Gatlinburg are roughly eighteen miles to the east.
Townsend is home to the Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center, which details life in pre-park days, and the Little River Railroad and Lumber Company Museum, which recounts the area's logging history. The Tuckaleechee Caverns— a mile-long cave system that reaches depths of up to 150 feet - is also nearby. Just to the north of Townsend, US-321 intersects Foothills Parkway, a national parkway that traverses Chilhowee Mountain and offers multiple overlooks with views of the Smokies to the south and the Tennessee Valley and Cumberland Plateau to the north and west.
When traveling the Townsend area, let Patrick Malone, a Gatlinburg real estate agent, be your guide.