Gatlinburg, TN
It’s a little place: Gatlinburg. About two miles long by five miles wide. On its own, it’s just a sleepy little mountain town with mostly good neighbors. A couple of the family names go all the way back to 1800 or so, some of them. A handful of families can trace back to the White Oak Flats days of 1835. The story goes that Radford Gatlin opened a general store in the 1850s and agreed to handle the new mail service, so the postmark became Gatlinburg in 1856. Unless you can trace your name back to the mid 1800s, you’re not really from here, you’re just a’ visitin’.
Things stayed pretty quiet around Gatlinburg for a long time, but then there came a big park in the 1930s. Great Smoky Mountains National Park… big name, big park. Quite a few families had to move so the park could be there where they’d lived for so long, so many generations, but they moved. There was just something about regular everyday people buying up 800 square miles of land to give to the government that made the families realize that something big was about to happen.
Big, indeed! Now boasting over nine million visitors a year, Great Smoky Mountains National Park has transformed Gatlinburg from a sleepy little town of 70-plus years ago into the perennial mountain getaway choice by generations of families.
Arts and crafts have long held a deep association with the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Nowhere else in the South will you find a richer heritage of fine craftsmanship than in Gatlinburg. Great Smoky Arts & Crafts Community, established in 1937, is the largest group of independent artisans in North America. Located on an eight-mile loop at the northeast edge of Gatlinburg, the Community proudly preserves the craft heritage of the Great Smoky Mountains year-round. This area offers you the best in a wide range of craft shops, including pottery, woodcarving, candlemaking, quilting, weaving, broommaking, and painting, among many other fine art forms.
Gatlinburg also is home to the renowned Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. Founded in 1945, Arrowmont offers summer and spring workshops and an array of special conferences for all levels of students in craft-art media. The art galleries at Arrowmont are open for tours of select collections throughout the year.
A leisurely stroll on the downtown Parkway opens up a world of opportunities when you’re in Gatlinburg. From the amazement of seeing 12-foot sharks swim over your head in an underwater tunnel at Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies to gazing at all of the incredible mysteries and amazing findings at Guinness World of Records Museum and Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum to mountain bobsledding and miniature golf and an evening of entertainment at Sweet Fanny Adams Theatre. You may not have time to experience Gatlinburg in just one trip. Plan on coming back year after year: three out of four people who visit Gatlinburg have been here before.
If you love to shop, Gatlinburg is your kind of place! With more than 400 specialty shops, boutiques, and galleries, you can easily find a special collectible or unique one-of-a-kind piece in this mountain resort. And dozens upon dozens of dining choices from national chain to family-owned provide menus featuring pancakes to prime rib, and everything in between.
Lodging landmarks like the stately Mountain View and granite-laden Greystone hotels are just memories to the older visitor, replaced now with an almost endless array of lodging options. Traditional and contemporary hotels and motels, with their limited to full-service amenities, dot the immediate downtown area. Luxuries like room service and big indoor or outdoor pools are a staple of numerous of these facilities. The pampering of bed and breakfast lodging is available in beautiful settings nearby, with some of the area’s friendliest folks as proprietors. Scattered across the mountainsides and on the fringe roads in the hollows are cabins, condos, and chalets, known for their “home away from home” ambiance and privacy.
It’s a little place: Gatlinburg. Little enough to cling to its mountain heritage, and big enough to take care of all the people who come to visit that big park next door. Come and visit for a few days, or for a few times. Either way, you’ll likely catch whatever it is that makes most everybody come back.