I recently hiked the Middle Prong Trail from the end of Treemont Road to the junction with the Panther Creek Trail.

This trail parallels the Lynn Camp Prong, a large stream.  The trail is on what was a logging railway built by the Little River Lumber Company before the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established.

To describe the trail, most would probably classify it as moderate in difficulty, and it is wide enough for four to five people to walk side by side on most of it.

 

About half a mile up the trail is a spectacular cascade called the Lynn Camp Prong Cascade.

In the early 1900s, the Little River Lumber Company built a railroad along what is now the Middle Prong trail.  Railroad flat cars were used to transport temporary housing units to a work site.  These houses resembled what today we would call a railroad boxcar.  A unit would be roughly 12 X 12 and would house two families (similar to our duplexes today).  Rent was deducted from the lumberman’s pay.  The temporary communities at a work site were called “stringtowns”.

The larger lumber companies had a community building where school was held on weekdays, church on Sundays, and often movies on Saturday nights.

These lumber companies also would have a doctor, post office, cafe, pool hall, store and barber shop.   A dollar would be deducted from the employee’s wages to cover the doctor’s services.  Workers would be paid in script, which they could use to buy what they needed from the company’s grocery and dry-goods store.   The Little River Lumber Company’s employees called the company script “doogaloo”.

Overhead skidders were used to transport logs to the rail line or stream.  These skidders could go as far as a little over a half mile back into the forest to get trees.  They were steam-powered, and it was not usual for them to cause a forest fire.  Some of the fires lasted for several months.  Additionally, dragging the logs destroyed younger trees and caused erosion.

The work days were usually 11 to 12 hours long, involved hard labor and the duties were dangerous.

Approximately a tenth of a mile past the cascades, there is a beautiful waterfall that is about five feet high.  A mile up the trail on the left, one can see where a bridge was located that went over to the Treemont Hotel, which had 22 rooms for guests and workers.  It was said that a room on the top floor was reserved for the school teacher provided by the company.  About a mile and a half up the trail, off to the right, is what is left of an old car (it was said to be a Cadillac).

Lynn Camp Prong

If a person chose to hike beyond the Panther Creek Trail junction, about a half mile up, an old CCC camp was located there.  Three point eight miles up the trail, there is a beautiful waterfall called Indian Flat Falls. It is about 30 feet below the trail and cannot be seen from the trail, where trees have foliage.  There is no sign there.

There is a lot of history related to the Little River Lumber Company, and the trail is scenic, especially when the water is high in the stream.  Additionally, many wildflowers bloom along the trail, and it is spectacular when the trees have fall foliage.

Tom Harrington is a regular hiker who reports on his hikes and mountain stories from the Smokies.

Follow KnoxTNToday on Facebook and Instagram.  Get all KnoxTNToday articles in one place with our Free Newsletter.