One of the places a visitor to Gatlinburg must see is the Mountaineer
Museum. This is a collection of some 2000 old-fashioned mountain
articles, gathered by Edna Lynn Simms.
Mrs. Simms came from Knoxville 24 years ago. She herself roamed the
mountains long before the tourists came. She picked up articles, and
lore, and the language of the hills. She has a bubbling enthusiasm for
everything she sees or hears, an enthusiasm that has not begun to simmer
down even after 24 years of mountain discovery.
Mrs. Simms’ museum is the best collection of mountain stuff in the
Smokies. And in her own head is one of the finest collections of
mountain speech and legend. Why, she has quoted so long that she talks
like a mountain woman herself.