There could’ve been a marina in our mountains

Sam Venable | Columnist

Great Smoky Goofs: First of Two Parts

Some of the visionaries who helped create Great Smoky Mountains National Park were dam-happy.

We can be damn happy they didn’t succeed.

Mama bear and cubs crossing the road in Cades Cove Mama black bear and cubs crossing a road in Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park earlier this week. (Catherine S. Blakespear / Used with permission)

Otherwise, visitors would be jet-skiing through Cades Cove today.

Preposterous as it seems, there once was a concerted effort to cover the place with 50 feet of water — and, no, I haven’t been huffing Coleman fuel by the campfire.

“It was an official proposal,” Steve Kemp told me. “It came up several times in the 1930s. It came close to happening, too.”

Recently retired after 30 years with the nonprofit Great Smoky Mountains Association, Kemp spent much of his career researching and writing about the park. One bizarre historic project he discovered was the plan for Cades Cove Lake.

Part 2: Mother Nature didn’t have a hand in this one

“A dam was to be built near what we know today as the Abrams Fall trailhead,” he said. “It was going to be 60 feet tall and 400 feet long and impound Abrams Creek into a reservoir three miles long and two miles wide.”

Among proponents of the project were Tennessee Gov. Gordon Browning, National Park Service director Arno Cammerer, Knoxville mayor George Dempster and Col. David Chapman, all of whom had worked tirelessly to convince Congress to make the Great Smokies a reality.

It helps to understand the mindset back then.

Government agencies were pouring concrete across the nation, turning thousands of miles of rivers and streams into reservoirs. What’s more, eastern national parks were relatively new and being modeled after lake resort parks in the western U.S.

Besides, what good was a tract of flat, useless dirt?

According to Kemp’s research, Browning said the cove was “nothing except impoverished farm land” and “barren of any attraction.”

“Many thought a lake was the only way to draw visitors to Cades Cove,” said Kemp.

(Think about that the next time it takes you three hours to drive the 11-mile Loop Road.)

“It amazes me there was no concern about the loss of historic buildings,” he added.

Hold on to your hiking boots. This gets crazier.

“A lot of pseudoscience came into play,” Kemp said. “Some ‘expert geologists’ argued that Cades Cove once had been covered by water. They claimed to document the old lake level and said the new lake would return Cades Cove to its natural form.”

Thankfully, opponents of the scheme — including pioneer environmentalists Harvey Broome and Benton MacKaye, along with NPS officials Stephen Mather and Horace Albright — prevailed, and the nutty precedent was deep-sixed.

In figurative water.

Next: Having a blast at the ol’ swimming hole.

Sam Venable’s column appears Sunday and Tuesday. Contact him at sam.venable@outlook.com.