Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

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Beginning of history in the Great Smoky Mountains

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  • BEGINNING OF HISTORY J^ , rffyl&st\ m THE GRSA.T 3100- MOUNTAINS An Address oaf or© the Officers of the U.S. national Park Service,, (fetobt* S-, 1930, la Bryson City, N. C* by Horace Kephart Xf there Ml bees airplanes in the time of Columbus, and the discoverer of i©s#lta had wnM immmtIi flyiaj f' I itif 13 1 S Prat lo.bra.dor to the Gulf Of y:o:;ico, th>;- lid hare seen little else than a vast forest spreading mwtPMNI from the itjtjftt&t Ocean to the prairies of Illinois end the ;-reut plain! Beyond tfee Mississippi. Two »£lXion ifNBl ttUUM of ©aetsrn Amrlea was a sylvan itlfliWlHtiti To those flying over that flPrMWMl'fy of tree-tops the only noticeable breaks in the forest would bar© been the fHating curves of rlfers, the mirror-shayts »f •l--,.;c^, NM mpUmi of wild marshes, and, at rare intervals, soos pmlH CleerJ hierc Indi had their Tillages i nfi^lds. la all that continental scope there was ao road. The rivers were the chief routes &f travel mi on fSuHB the jttifi* of the Indlaafl left ao traces. Back in the boundless woods there ran only narrow foot-paths, first made by the buffaloes and then used by the red men as trading routes and war-paths. Sueh was the forest primeval, where, in .all the ages, ao tree had been felled by man, save by laborious hacking with stone axes and the action of fire* It was something very different from the
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