Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

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Aerial view of Mount Guyot with Balsam range

  • wcu_great_smoky_mtns-15387.jpg
  • Paul M. Fink (1892-1980) of Jonesborough, Tennessee, was an early advocate for the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This collection of photographs from 1914 through the 1930s was taken while Fink thoroughly explored the Great Smoky Mountains and surrounding area. A banker and a conservationist, Fink kept a journal of his explorations and published his entries in Backpacking Was the Only Way (1975). This photograph was taken on November 4, 1922, when pilot James G. Ray took Paul M. Fink in a Curtiss "Jenny" biplane on what is thought to be the first flight across the Smokies. On the back of this photograph Fink wrote: Guyot from the air (In outer) from the north, with Balsam and other ranges.