What Is Cades Cove Historic District?
Built around the Cherokee village of Tsiya’hi (“Otter Place”), this was one of the earliest Euro-American settlements in the Great Smoky Mountains!
What Makes It Historical?
With the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812, Americans started pushing west into territory previously controlled by Britain and their Native allies. By 1818, the first settler family, John and Lurena Oliver, had settled among the Cherokee in this region, assisted through a rough winter by their Native neighbors. Calling the area Cades Cove after Kade, the chief of Tsiya’hi, it would be the only part of Cherokee culture to linger here after they were all evicted from the Great Smoky Mountains under the Treaty of Calhoun!
In their place, more Euro-American settlers began arriving into the 1820s, with a population tally reaching 685 by 1850! Families like the Olivers, Sparks, Cables, and Whiteheads set up farms, grist mills, and churches and built their own unique community here. This included singing schools, which taught folks how to sing “Sacred Harp” (a capella) using a special kind of “Shape Note” music, which used diamonds, squares, circles, and triangles to communicate pitch! The Cades Cove community went on this way for a hundred years until the government began buying land here in 1927 to create Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Some folks sold their land right away and left, while others signed a life lease, which gave them less money but allowed them to live out their lives in Cades Cove as part of the national park. Today, the cove is speckled with the cabins, churches, and mills left behind by these early Appalachian settlers!
How Can I #HelpTheHelpers?
- Pay the entrance fee to help maintain trails, signs, structures, and other visitor services!
- Volunteer at Great Smoky Mountains National Park!
- Donate to Friends of the Smokies!
- Be a responsible visitor! Please respect the signs and pathways, and treat all structures and artifacts with respect. They’ve endured a lot to survive into the present. They’ll need our help to make it into the future!
How Do I Get There?
The Cades Cove Scenic Loop begins and ends at these GPS coordinates:
35.60652838366089, -83.77406372152633
(Take Me There!)
When Should I Visit?
The scenic loop road is open all year from sunrise to sunset, though the visitor center is only open from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM (4:30 PM in winter)! If you have a bike, swing by on a Wednesday between mid June and late September when the road closes to motorized vehicles, and you’ll have the ultimate scenic ride!
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