Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

Western Carolina University (20) View all

Davis Bracken's home from Chimney Tops

  • wcu_great_smoky_mtns-15284.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). On the back of this undated photograph, Fink wrote: The white arrowhead shape in the distance is the clearing of Jasper Finn's home. Taken from the "Chimneys." (This is my favorite of all John's mountain pictures - we call it "The long, long trail awinding -" Note: Davis Bracken is referred to as Jasper Finn in Chapter X of Horace Kephart's book Our Southern Highlanders. Bracken was the custodian of the Champion Fibre Company's possession cabin.