Gatlinburg Roots

Gatlinburg Roots Home of the official Gatlinburg Roots Podcast. Their stories, along with the stories of countless other mountain families, form the foundation of this project.
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Founded by seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-generation descendants of Martha Jane Huskey Ogle, Gatlinburg Roots preserves the stories, memories, and history of White Oak Flats and Gatlinburg. Gatlinburg Roots was founded by seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-generation descendants of White Oak Flats families whose roots run deep in these mountains. Through the Ogle and Reagan family lines, including direct

descent from Martha Jane Huskey Ogle, the project grew from inherited photographs, family stories, and memories passed from one generation to the next. For generations, these families lived, worked, worshiped, raised children, and built lives in the community known as White Oak Flats. Through photographs, family histories, historical research, and firsthand accounts, Gatlinburg Roots works to preserve the people, places, traditions, and everyday life of White Oak Flats, Gatlinburg, and the Great Smoky Mountains. Every photograph has a story. Every family has a place. Every generation leaves something worth remembering. Most of us are only three generations away from being forgotten. Gatlinburg Roots exists to help ensure those memories, stories, and legacies are preserved and passed forward to the generations that follow. Keep on Rootin'.

06/03/2026

Ranger Tips That Haven't Changed in 70 Years

This old Smoky Mountain film was made decades ago.

The cars are different.

The clothes are different.

The roads are different.

But the advice is almost exactly the same.

Back then, visitors were encouraged to stop and talk with a park ranger before choosing a campground.

Today, rangers still know which campgrounds are crowded, which ones are quieter, where families tend to stay, and which areas offer the easiest access to trails and facilities.

For all the changes that have come to the Smokies over the years, some things haven't changed much at all.

The best campground advice in the mountains still comes from the people who spend every day in them.

Sometimes the old ways remain the best ways.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains, preserving Gatlinburg history and the everyday life and memory of earlier generations.

If you have old photos, family stories, or memories connected to these mountains, send us a message. Your story could be featured in a future post.

Keep on Rootin’.




06/02/2026

Before There Was a Farm

The Forest Vanished Leaving Nothing Behind

Before there were roads, tractors, or modern equipment, turning Smoky Mountain wilderness into a farm was one of the hardest jobs a family could face.

The first challenge wasn't planting crops.

It was clearing the land.

Mountain families had to cut massive trees by hand, burn the brush, remove stumps, dig out roots, and break apart tough sod before a single seed could be planted. The work took months, sometimes years, and every acre came at the cost of sweat, sore backs, and countless hours of labor.

One old mountain resident remembered it this way:

"To get the farm once, uh, cleared away to be a farm was quite a problem. Lots of big trees to be cut and burned, and get any way to get 'em out of the way. And it's hard to break and get the roots and everything, the sod broken up, uh, to really to farm it."

What many people don't realize is that when they're standing in downtown Gatlinburg today, they're standing on land that was once farmland. And before it became farmland, it was dense mountain forest, cleared by hand with axes, saws, fire, and determination.

The farm didn't begin with a harvest.

It began with removing a forest.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains, preserving Gatlinburg history and the everyday life and memory of earlier generations.

If you have old photos, family stories, or memories connected to these mountains, send us a message. Your story could be featured in a future post.

Keep on Rootin’.




06/01/2026

The Forests Vanished, Leaving Nothing Behind

How the loss of Appalachia's forests changed mountain life forever.

When the first settlers arrived in these mountains, they found forests that seemed endless.

Great stands of chestnut, oak, hickory, and pine covered the ridges from valley floor to mountaintop. Timber provided jobs, homes, fuel, and income for generations of mountain families.

Then the forests began to disappear.

Logging companies moved into the Southern Appalachians in the late 1800s and early 1900s, cutting vast sections of old-growth timber. Entire hillsides that had stood untouched for centuries were stripped bare in only a few years.

For many mountain communities, timber had been one of the few dependable ways to earn a living. When the trees were gone, so were many of the jobs.

Families who had once relied on the forest faced hard choices. Poverty increased across many rural areas, and communities already isolated by geography struggled with limited access to healthcare, education, and economic opportunity.

The loss was more than economic. The forests had shaped daily life, local traditions, and the relationship mountain people had with the land itself.

A hundred years ago, much of this region was covered by dense forest. Today, many of those mountains have recovered through conservation and the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but the stories of the generations who lived through those difficult years remain an important part of Appalachian history.

Their struggle reminds us that the mountains provided more than scenery. They provided a way of life.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains, preserving Gatlinburg history and the everyday life and memory of earlier generations.

If you have old photos, family stories, or memories connected to these mountains, send us a message. Your story could be featured in a future post.

Keep on Rootin’.

05/31/2026

The Value of a Nest Egg

Long before modern credit scores and digital apps, mountain families taught their children the value of an honest dollar and a hard-earned nest egg.

In the old days, building a future meant putting something away in the bank that you could fall back upon when times got lean, or when the day finally came to purchase your very first home.

True financial security started with walking into the local bank, sitting down with the banker, and showing him exactly what you had saved through honest work—demonstrating the quiet, foundational mountain value of being completely thrifty.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains — before the tourists, before the park, and before the name Gatlinburg became known around the world. If you grew up here, lived part of your life in these mountains, or know someone whose story needs to be told — we want to hear it. Your story could be featured in a future post.

Keep on Rootin’

05/31/2026

Great Smoky Mountains: Majestic Peaks Above 6,000 Feet!

Most people know the Great Smoky Mountains for the views.

What many don't realize is just how high these mountains actually are.

More than a dozen peaks inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park rise above the 6,000-foot level, forming a majestic climax to the Appalachian Highlands.

The Smokies get their name from the eternal, smoke-like haze that drifts across the ridges.

That haze isn't fog.

It rises from the dense plant growth, created by natural compounds released by millions of trees and plants across the mountains. When sunlight mixes with those particles, it creates the blue-gray appearance that has made the Smokies famous around the world.

Stand on a high overlook at sunrise or after a summer rain and the sight reveals ridge after ridge fading into the distance.

The same view people have been stopping to admire for generations.

Some places are beautiful.

The Smokies are unforgettable.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains, preserving Gatlinburg history and the everyday life and memory of earlier generations. If you have old photos, family stories, or memories connected to these mountains, send us a message. Your story could be featured in a future post. Keep on Rootin’.

05/29/2026

Gatlinburg Roots — When Dandelions Were Supper

Today, many people spend money trying to get rid of dandelions.

Lawn companies spray them.
Homeowners dig them up.
Entire industries exist to keep them from appearing in a yard.

A century ago in the Smoky Mountains, people walked outside looking for them.

After a long winter, fresh food could be hard to find. As soon as spring arrived, mountain families headed into fields, fence rows, and pastures searching for tender new greens.

Dandelions were among the first.

Not weeds.

Food.

One mountain woman remembered following her grandmother through the spring countryside gathering wild greens in an apron. Dock. Plantain. Field cress. Dandelion greens. Whatever the season offered.

She later recalled that when they went out with Granny, they often gathered enough before returning home to feed quite a few people.

Back then, nobody worried about having a perfectly green lawn.

The mountains themselves were part of the pantry.

Many families cooked what was known as a "mess of greens" — a mixture of wild plants gathered together and cooked for the table. Poke was usually prepared separately, but dandelions often went right into the pot.

It's a strange thing to think about.

The same plant many people fight today was once welcomed because it meant spring had arrived and there was fresh food to eat again.

What changed wasn't the dandelion.

What changed was the world around it.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains, preserving Gatlinburg history and the everyday life and memory of earlier generations.

Keep on Rootin'.

To contribute rare photos or family stories to this project, send a message to the page.

05/28/2026

Gatlinburg Roots — “Planting by the Moon”

Before electricity reached many mountain communities…
before county farm agents…
before modern farming methods spread through Appalachia…

Families across these mountains planted by the moon.

This rare old footage captures a fading transition in Smoky Mountain life — the moment older mountain traditions began colliding with modern agricultural ideas brought in through power lines, government programs, and changing times.

“A mountain farmer years ago planted according to spells of the moon.”

For generations, planting signs, moon phases, weather patterns, and inherited knowledge shaped life in these hills. Much of it wasn’t come from books. It was passed down through families, neighbors, and experience earned season after season in mountain soil.

“When his land wore out, he cleared some more. He knew there was something wrong, but that was the way his father did it.”

Then the mountains began to change.

Electric lights appeared.
County farm agents arrived.
Federal advisors introduced new methods.
And many older traditions slowly began fading into memory.

But pieces of that world still survive in stories passed down across the Smokies.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains, preserving Gatlinburg history and the everyday life and memory of earlier generations.

Keep on Rootin’. To contribute rare photos or family stories to this project, send a message to the page.

05/27/2026

The Day a Mountain Classroom Was Frozen in Time

"Seventh and eighth grade literature class, would you take your literature books out please and turn to page 137."

Elmer delivers the king's ultimatum:

"It is yes, Father Abbot, thy fault it is high,
And now for the same thy leaders must die.
Except if thee can answer me questions three,
Thy head shall be smitten from thy body."

Nobody in that classroom knew the moment mattered. It was just another ordinary school day in the mountains — a literature lesson, a textbook assignment, voices taking turns reading an old English folk ballad that had already lived for centuries before it ever found its way into this Smoky Mountain classroom.

But someone turned on a recorder that day.

A folk song turned into a classroom lesson was suddenly frozen in time.

Because of that simple decision, an ordinary seventh and eighth grade literature class from decades ago is still speaking. The cadence of young mountain voices, the rhythm of turn-taking, the sound of a teacher guiding a lesson — all preserved like a time capsule. Most school days vanish completely. This one didn't.

In that Appalachian classroom, the old ballad came alive again through Bessie, Margaret, Clara, and Elmer. What started as a folk tale of kings, abbots, and clever riddles became something new in the mountains — passed along in that distinctive Appalachian way, one young reader to the next. It wasn't a performance. It was just kids doing what mountain kids did in school back then.

These kinds of recordings are rare treasures now. They capture more than words on a page. They capture the sound of a community, the feel of an everyday classroom, and the quiet thread connecting generations in the Smokies. What felt completely routine at the time becomes something special simply because it survived — a classroom frozen in time.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains, preserving Gatlinburg history and the everyday life and memory of earlier generations.

Keep on Rootin'. To contribute rare photos or family stories to this project, send a message to the page.

05/26/2026

The Living History of the Noah "Bud" Ogle Cabin

The Noah "Bud" Ogle Place on Cherokee Orchard Road is one of the most recognized historic landmarks near Gatlinburg. Thousands of visitors stop to photograph the preserved saddlebag cabin, walking through the empty rooms to catch a glimpse of early mountain life before driving on toward the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail.

But long before it was a historic site listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it wasn't a landmark at all.

It was just home.

In this archival recording, Lucinda Ogle—daughter of legendary mountain guide Wiley Oakley—shares what the homestead looked like through the eyes of a child, long before Gatlinburg became what it is today. To her, the historic structure was simply her grandparents' house.

She recalled how they first built one cabin when they were newly married, adding the second structure right beside it as their family expanded. The family didn't use architectural terms; they just called them "this house" and "the t'other." Whenever Granny needed an errand run, she'd tell the children to go over to "the t'other house," and everyone knew exactly which door she meant. When kith and kin like Heath and Ken came to visit, the entire double-cabin was loaded with people from wall to wall.

Outside, the landscape was a playground. The kids would head down to LeConte Creek—which the family called Jungle Brook—to play a game of rock hopping. Brothers, sisters, and cousins would gather on the massive boulders, competing to see who could stay off the ground the longest without stepping in the dirt.

At night, when the rooms fell quiet, Granny would let Lucinda sleep in the bed right by the single small window. Lying there on the far end, she would look out over the dark mountains stretching down below, watching the lightning flash as summer storms rolled across the ridges, wondering what the world had in store for little folks like her.

Today, tourists see ancient timber and pioneer architecture. Lucinda remembered family, rock-hopping contests, and watching the lightning from her grandparents' window.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains.

Keep on Rootin'.

Memorial Day is a time to remember every American service member who gave their life in defense of our country—from dist...
05/25/2026

Memorial Day is a time to remember every American service member who gave their life in defense of our country—from distant battlefields of the past to the conflicts of our own time.

Today, Gatlinburg Roots pauses to remember eleven Sevier County men who left these mountains for Vietnam and never returned home.

Their names are part of a larger legacy of sacrifice carried by local families through every generation of military service, from World War I and World War II to Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, and beyond.

May these names continue to be remembered:

Carroll David Abbott

Dannie Arthur Carr

Randy Ralph Cogdill

Hobart Earl Covington

Gary Reagan Fox

Harry Gaines Hodges

Alton Lee Hornbuckle

Estel Huskey

Eddie Manis

Jerry McCarter

Michael Clarence Vickery

Their stories ended far from home.

Their names remain here.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains, preserving Gatlinburg history and the everyday life and memory of earlier generations. Keep on Rootin'. To contribute rare photos or family stories to this project, send a message to the page.

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Gatlinburg, TN
37738

Website

https://open.spotify.com/show/5TTIYf1OYjzhfmCISCR0wQ, https://www.youtube.com/@GatlinburgRo

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