Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

Western Carolina University (20) View all

Smokemont Store

  • wcu_great_smoky_mtns-11483.jpg
  • At Smokemont, 500 men worked at the Champion sawmill and pulpwood plant. Some 15 company towns and sawmills were constructed in the area that is now the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Mountain people who had once farmed the area, now cut trees for a living, attracted to logging by the promise of security and steady income. Timber companies built logging towns to house hundreds of workers and their families. Among them were Crestmont on Big Creek, Ravensford on Raven Fork, Proctor on Hazel Creek, Townsend on the Little River, and Smokemont on the Oconaluftee River.