Letters from the Smokies

Within the archives of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a wealth of knowledge is tucked away in more than a million time-worn documents. This book, written by the park's librarian, makes some of the most salient of its letters readily accessible.

Meet a Tennessee woman who wrote about Southern life under a male pseudonym. Follow celebrated ornithologist Roger Troy Peterson on an epic road trip that included the Smokies. Learn how an artificial lake would have engulfed the park's beloved Cade's Cove. And hear the remarkable tale of a Smokies bobcat gifted to a US president.

Within a three-century span, archivist Mike Aday captures stories of people whose voices we don't often hear: Jewell Manor's grief at the death of her cousin Charley; an 1879 tax license issued to "retailer of spirits"Deborah McGee; the telegram to Anne Davis congratulating her on the passage of a bill authorizing the purchase of 78,000 acres of land from the Little River Lumber Co for a new national park.

The letters Aday has chosen, sensitively presented, explained, and contextualized, represent the centuries-long development of a region in a way that makes history tangible, immediate, and recognizably human.