Happy Birthday Great Smoky Mountains N.P.

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

On this day in 1934, Congress passed legislation providing that the then 400,000-acre holding “be established as a completed park for administration, protection and maintenance,” thus establishing June 15, 1934, as the official birth date of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

To help celebrate this day, I’d like to offer an old film compilation from the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound that I recently discovered.

The film includes footage of:

* A Smoky Mountains Hiking Club grill-out from 1928

* Wily Oakley “the Roamin’ Man of the Mountains”

* Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s dedication of the Smoky Mountains from Newfound Gap in 1940.

* One of the most compelling scenes from the film are the shots of old Gatlinburg.

After hitting "Play", it might take a couple of seconds for the film to load:





Jeff
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