Next week, the Knoxville History Project is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the grassroots movement to establish a national park in the Great Smoky Mountains. The “Birth of a National Park in the Smokies Symposium” will be held July 25-27, 2024.
It will be a jam-packed three days exploring the kernel of the idea, championed by Anne Davis after returning from her famous 1923 trip to the national parks in the west. She remarked to her husband, “We have seen some beautiful country and grand mountains, but nothing more beautiful and majestic than our own Great Smokies. Why shouldn’t our own Great Smokies be made a national park?”
Between the idea and the reality lay a whole bunch of details to align, and align they did, thanks to Anne and a lot of other people who put in enormous hours of work. The symposium will cover the early days of the movement with tours, screenings and talks by experts, historians, and storytellers.
It’s well worth checking out the full schedule on the Knoxville History Project’s website. The events will take place at various locations in town from Central Cinema in Happy Holler to the East Tennessee History Center and the Historic Bijou Theatre on Gay Street. All events are free and open to the public, but some events require registration.
As part of the celebration, the Library’s McClung Historical Collection and TAMIS are pleased to present Portraits of the Smokies: Celebrating the enduring photographers, filmmakers and other visual artists of the national park movement during the 1920s on Friday, July 26, at 7 p.m. at the Bijou Theatre.
This special multi-media evening will feature new high quality film transfers and stunning images of mountain views, vistas and outdoor enthusiasts including Jim Thompson, Jack Huff, Carlos Campbell and others. Some rare 1920s color film footage of the Smokies will be highlighted and guitarist Bob Deck will provide a live music soundtrack. Many thanks to Friends of the Library for making this event possible.
Mary Pom Claiborne is assistant director for marketing, communications and development for Knox County Public Library.
