Western Carolina University WCU University of North Carolina Asheville UNCA

Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

Western Carolina University (21) View all
University of North Carolina Asheville (6) View all
WCU - Great Smoky Mountains - A Park for America

Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome

items 9 of 12 items
  • wcu_great_smoky_mtns-11123.jpg
Copyright Download
Item 1 - Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-11115.jpg

Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome

GSMNP_10184_06_01_01
Item 2 - Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-11116.jpg

Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome

GSMNP_10184_06_01_02
Item 3 - Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-11117.jpg

Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome

GSMNP_10184_06_01_03
Item 4 - Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-11118.jpg

Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome

GSMNP_10184_06_01_04
Item 5 - Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-11119.jpg

Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome

GSMNP_10184_06_01_05
Item 6 - Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-11120.jpg

Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome

GSMNP_10184_08_01_01
Item 7 - Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-11121.jpg

Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome

GSMNP_10184_08_01_02
Item 8 - Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-11122.jpg

Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome

GSMNP_10184_08_01_03
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-11123.jpg

Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome

GSMNP_10184_08_01_04
Item 10 - Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-11124.jpg

Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome

GSMNP_10184_08_02
Item 11 - Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-11125.jpg

Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome

GSMNP_10184_28_01_01
Item 12 - Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-11126.jpg

Correspondence: George Kephart to Michael Frome

GSMNP_10184_28_01_02
Item
?

Item’s are ‘child’ level descriptions to ‘parent’ objects, (e.g. one page of a whole book).

  • soes." . And in 1923', The Outers' Book Co. in Chicago published a email compendium by Kephart, entitled: "The Camper's Manual." • Through all of these years, the land which comprised _ .Kephart's unspoiled Eden was still privately owned, - in large part by lumber companies;' and, foreseeing the danger of destruction of this natural beauty, he became a leading proponent of the National Park program. ■ For the Swain County Chamber of Commerce, in 1925-, Kephart wrote an eloquent plea and cogent argumentation • ... for the national park. And in a booklet compiled by the Ashe- -_y vi.lle Chamber of Commerce in the late nine teen-twenties, it is ■• l. recognized that, „Tq Hr> Kephart is due much of the cred- '*".' ••it for the origination of the plan for a National Park in the. Great Smoky Mountains. He has been active as a leader in the movement for the establishment of this • '•' . •; .'great reservation in the midst of a primitive forest. '■. Perhaps no'man in the world knows these mountains as he . does. For years he has roamed and explored their fast- t nesses.' Out of his love for their majestic slopes and '" .. t- summits has largely grown the realization of a dream of •.a:.Great Smoky Mountains National Park." And he v/as accordf ed further recognition by having one of the peaks within the re-y gion officially named "Mt. Kephart." Quite appropriately, no^ ;.-* highway or byway provides access to this mountain, and it can be visited only on foot or by'horseback:' wilderness preserved inviolate, for one who had written: "It was pleasant enough to lie ' here alone in the forest and be free! Aye, it was good to be alive., and to be far, far away from the broken bottles and old tin. cans of civilization." •' : h ' In the year 1929/30, Horace Kephart was President of the State Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina..- •The same year, 1930, brought the establishment of ■ the.. National ■ ■•■ Park• for which he had worked so earnestly; but he was. not to be on hand for its formal dedication in 194-0: for, in April, 1931;» he and a fellow-author who was visiting- him were killed as passengers in an automobile which plunged off the highway at night and turned over several times. Adjoining the National Park's southern boundary, between Waynesville and Bryson City, is a small Cherokee Indian Reservation. In 1.936, Laura Mack Kephart published in Ithaca a thirty-page paper which her husband had written on "The Cherokees of'the Smoky Mountains." In it, he reviews the history of the white man's dispossession of the Cherokee Indians, and of the desperate resistance' of the few hundreds who refused to be relocated in Oklahoma; and he recounts this anecdote about their chieftain, Yonaguska: v"When a Cherokee translation of St. Matthew was'published at.New Echota, and a copy was brought to the Kituwha country, Yonaguska would not allow it to be circulated 'until it had first been read to himself. After listening to a few chapters the old chief dry!}' remarked,. ]We11, it seems to be a good book - strange that the, white' people are no better, after having had it so .long.•" _ '•But, as Kephart has written anent tne "Highlanders" : "It is a truth as old as the human race that savageries may co-exist with admirable qualities of hoad *nd heart. . •'. . it is . . . all humanjty, that scientific faith embraces and will sustain." - „ >' • .
Object
?

Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).

Related items

Part of Collection

Great Smoky Mountains - A Park for America

This digital collection was created to contribute to the public's understanding of the forces and ideas that led to the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1934. The most vi...

View collection Read introduction
panzoom image
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-11123.jpg