Nearly a million tourists a year are now coming to see the wonders of
the Great Smoky Mountains. But I’ll bet not one in 1000 ever finds out
anything about the greatest wonder of all—and that is the people of
Gatlinburg.
Gatlinburg is unique, there’s no question about it. Ten years ago it had
a population of 75, and the mountain people just scraped along from one
meal to the next.
Today Gatlinburg, thanks to tourists, has a population of 1300 and is
rolling in wealth. And what is unique about it—and delightful too—is
that the money is going into the pockets of the old original families
here, who for so long had almost nothing.
There are now approximately 40 business establishments in town. At least
half of them are owned within four families. They are families that have
been here for generations. And of the other half, not more than half a
dozen are owned by outsiders.
Many a slick fellow has arrived here, expecting to buy out these easy
marks for nothing or sign them up on a trick lease. But in every case,
they say, the smart fellow has left town without his own shirt.
The surprising thing about this whole evolution is two-fold:
1—That the local people had the shrewdness to hold on to things.
2—That they had the ability themselves, with almost no experience, to do
the necessary job of building for and satisfactorily serving a million
tourists a year.
The answer to the first is fundamental. It lies in the mountain man’s
absolute refusal to give up his land. Money as such doesn’t mean much to
a mountain man. It is land that he values, and craves. Once he has land,
he won’t give it up.
As a consequence, outsiders can’t buy land in Gatlinburg. No matter what
they offer, the mountain man says, “I don’t want to sell. I wouldn’t
have no place to pasture my cow.”
The answer to the second is simply that the mountain men of Tennessee
are smart. You can’t make anything else out of it. They’re just natively
smart, that’s all.