Gatlinburg Roots

Gatlinburg Roots Home of the official Gatlinburg Roots Podcast. Their stories, along with the stories of countless other mountain families, form the foundation of this project.
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Founded by seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-generation descendants of Martha Jane Huskey Ogle, Gatlinburg Roots preserves the stories, memories, and history of White Oak Flats and Gatlinburg. Gatlinburg Roots was founded by seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-generation descendants of White Oak Flats families whose roots run deep in these mountains. Through the Ogle and Reagan family lines, including direct

descent from Martha Jane Huskey Ogle, the project grew from inherited photographs, family stories, and memories passed from one generation to the next. For generations, these families lived, worked, worshiped, raised children, and built lives in the community known as White Oak Flats. Through photographs, family histories, historical research, and firsthand accounts, Gatlinburg Roots works to preserve the people, places, traditions, and everyday life of White Oak Flats, Gatlinburg, and the Great Smoky Mountains. Every photograph has a story. Every family has a place. Every generation leaves something worth remembering. Most of us are only three generations away from being forgotten. Gatlinburg Roots exists to help ensure those memories, stories, and legacies are preserved and passed forward to the generations that follow. Keep on Rootin'.

05/28/2026

Gatlinburg Roots — “Planting by the Moon”

Before electricity reached many mountain communities…
before county farm agents…
before modern farming methods spread through Appalachia…

Families across these mountains planted by the moon.

This rare old footage captures a fading transition in Smoky Mountain life — the moment older mountain traditions began colliding with modern agricultural ideas brought in through power lines, government programs, and changing times.

“A mountain farmer years ago planted according to spells of the moon.”

For generations, planting signs, moon phases, weather patterns, and inherited knowledge shaped life in these hills. Much of it wasn’t come from books. It was passed down through families, neighbors, and experience earned season after season in mountain soil.

“When his land wore out, he cleared some more. He knew there was something wrong, but that was the way his father did it.”

Then the mountains began to change.

Electric lights appeared.
County farm agents arrived.
Federal advisors introduced new methods.
And many older traditions slowly began fading into memory.

But pieces of that world still survive in stories passed down across the Smokies.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains, preserving Gatlinburg history and the everyday life and memory of earlier generations.

Keep on Rootin’. To contribute rare photos or family stories to this project, send a message to the page.

05/27/2026

The Day a Mountain Classroom Was Frozen in Time

"Seventh and eighth grade literature class, would you take your literature books out please and turn to page 137."

Elmer delivers the king's ultimatum:

"It is yes, Father Abbot, thy fault it is high,
And now for the same thy leaders must die.
Except if thee can answer me questions three,
Thy head shall be smitten from thy body."

Nobody in that classroom knew the moment mattered. It was just another ordinary school day in the mountains — a literature lesson, a textbook assignment, voices taking turns reading an old English folk ballad that had already lived for centuries before it ever found its way into this Smoky Mountain classroom.

But someone turned on a recorder that day.

A folk song turned into a classroom lesson was suddenly frozen in time.

Because of that simple decision, an ordinary seventh and eighth grade literature class from decades ago is still speaking. The cadence of young mountain voices, the rhythm of turn-taking, the sound of a teacher guiding a lesson — all preserved like a time capsule. Most school days vanish completely. This one didn't.

In that Appalachian classroom, the old ballad came alive again through Bessie, Margaret, Clara, and Elmer. What started as a folk tale of kings, abbots, and clever riddles became something new in the mountains — passed along in that distinctive Appalachian way, one young reader to the next. It wasn't a performance. It was just kids doing what mountain kids did in school back then.

These kinds of recordings are rare treasures now. They capture more than words on a page. They capture the sound of a community, the feel of an everyday classroom, and the quiet thread connecting generations in the Smokies. What felt completely routine at the time becomes something special simply because it survived — a classroom frozen in time.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains, preserving Gatlinburg history and the everyday life and memory of earlier generations.

Keep on Rootin'. To contribute rare photos or family stories to this project, send a message to the page.

05/26/2026

The Living History of the Noah "Bud" Ogle Cabin

The Noah "Bud" Ogle Place on Cherokee Orchard Road is one of the most recognized historic landmarks near Gatlinburg. Thousands of visitors stop to photograph the preserved saddlebag cabin, walking through the empty rooms to catch a glimpse of early mountain life before driving on toward the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail.

But long before it was a historic site listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it wasn't a landmark at all.

It was just home.

In this archival recording, Lucinda Ogle—daughter of legendary mountain guide Wiley Oakley—shares what the homestead looked like through the eyes of a child, long before Gatlinburg became what it is today. To her, the historic structure was simply her grandparents' house.

She recalled how they first built one cabin when they were newly married, adding the second structure right beside it as their family expanded. The family didn't use architectural terms; they just called them "this house" and "the t'other." Whenever Granny needed an errand run, she'd tell the children to go over to "the t'other house," and everyone knew exactly which door she meant. When kith and kin like Heath and Ken came to visit, the entire double-cabin was loaded with people from wall to wall.

Outside, the landscape was a playground. The kids would head down to LeConte Creek—which the family called Jungle Brook—to play a game of rock hopping. Brothers, sisters, and cousins would gather on the massive boulders, competing to see who could stay off the ground the longest without stepping in the dirt.

At night, when the rooms fell quiet, Granny would let Lucinda sleep in the bed right by the single small window. Lying there on the far end, she would look out over the dark mountains stretching down below, watching the lightning flash as summer storms rolled across the ridges, wondering what the world had in store for little folks like her.

Today, tourists see ancient timber and pioneer architecture. Lucinda remembered family, rock-hopping contests, and watching the lightning from her grandparents' window.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains.

Keep on Rootin'.

Memorial Day is a time to remember every American service member who gave their life in defense of our country—from dist...
05/25/2026

Memorial Day is a time to remember every American service member who gave their life in defense of our country—from distant battlefields of the past to the conflicts of our own time.

Today, Gatlinburg Roots pauses to remember eleven Sevier County men who left these mountains for Vietnam and never returned home.

Their names are part of a larger legacy of sacrifice carried by local families through every generation of military service, from World War I and World War II to Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, and beyond.

May these names continue to be remembered:

Carroll David Abbott

Dannie Arthur Carr

Randy Ralph Cogdill

Hobart Earl Covington

Gary Reagan Fox

Harry Gaines Hodges

Alton Lee Hornbuckle

Estel Huskey

Eddie Manis

Jerry McCarter

Michael Clarence Vickery

Their stories ended far from home.

Their names remain here.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains, preserving Gatlinburg history and the everyday life and memory of earlier generations. Keep on Rootin'. To contribute rare photos or family stories to this project, send a message to the page.

05/24/2026

What Happens When There's No More Change?

A penny means somebody stopped by.

A nickel means they trained together.

A dime means they served together.

A quarter means they were there when it happened.

For generations, those small coins have carried big meaning on military headstones across America.

A silent message.

A simple act of remembrance.

But fewer people carry change now.

New pennies are no longer being made. Retailers are already running short. Transactions are being rounded. The change has already started.

So what happens when there's no more change?

Do we start carrying a few coins specifically for moments like this?

Do we leave a stone instead?

Or does the tradition slowly fade away?


What Happens When There's No More Change?You reach the headstone. You do what your family has done—reach into your pocke...
05/24/2026

What Happens When There's No More Change?

You reach the headstone. You do what your family has done—reach into your pocket for a penny, a nickel, maybe a dime. A small gesture. A silent way to say: I was here. I remembered.

But your pocket is empty.

Not because you forgot. Because nobody carries change anymore.

This Year, You Still Might Have One

This Memorial Day weekend, most of us still have something—a penny pulled from the cupholder, a dime that made it through the wash, quarters that didn't get fed to the Laundromat. We're still operating in the in-between. The coins are still out there. For now.

Walk into a convenience store. Buy a drink. Pay cash. Ask for the pennies back.

More and more often, they aren't there.

New pennies are no longer being made. Retailers are already running short. Transactions are being rounded. The change has already started.

The penny is still legal tender.

But it is slowly disappearing from everyday life.

Next Year, What Do You Bring?

This isn't hypothetical. It's already happening. People are going to cemeteries—military cemeteries, family plots, memorial sites across Appalachia—and the ritual that meant something specific is about to break down. Not because people stop caring. Because the object that carried the meaning is no longer in circulation.

A quarter used to mean: I was there. I saw it happen.

A dime meant: We served together.

A nickel meant: We trained together.

A penny meant: Someone stopped by. Someone remembered.

What happens when there's no penny to leave?

Do you bring one specifically? Do you start carrying a few coins specifically for moments like this? Do you leave a stone instead—reverting to a tradition older than currency, older than America?

Or does the gesture just... fade?

The Question That Matters

This is what happens in the margins of big changes. Not the policy announcements. Not the Federal Reserve decisions about whether to keep minting pennies.

It's the practical, human question: what do we do when the small ritual we depended on no longer fits into how we actually live?

This Memorial Day, check your pocket. You probably have change. But ask yourself: next year, will I?

And if you won't—if none of us will—then what do we leave behind to say we were there?

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains, preserving Gatlinburg history and the everyday life and memory of earlier generations.

Keep on Rootin'.

To contribute rare photos or family stories to this project, send a message to the page.

05/24/2026

Pay, or Don't Go

It's 9 o'clock on a Sunday morning. I decide I'm going to drive up to Sugarlands. There's a cemetery up there—been in my family for generations. I want to go visit.

I load up and head to the park.

I pull in. Park the truck. I'm going to walk up to that cemetery and stand where my ancestors are buried.

A ranger stops me. "You got a parking pass?"

And that's when it hits me: I'm about to have to pay—or get a ticket—to visit my family's graves on land my family used to own.

Not because I'm doing anything wrong. Not because I'm causing trouble. But because somewhere along the way, visiting your own ancestors' burial ground became a regulated transaction.

Tennessee law says I can't be denied access to a cemetery. The park says descendants get free permits for cemetery visits. But there's no permit on a Sunday morning at 9 o'clock. There's no way to get one. There's just a parking fee or a federal citation.

This isn't about five dollars.

The families who gave up this land were promised that the park would never charge a fee to enter it.

Yet here I am, facing a parking fee just to visit my family's burial plot.

And Sugarlands isn't the only cemetery inside the park. The same question reaches Greenbrier, Elkmont, Cherokee Orchard Road, Cades Cove, Cataloochee, and the many other family cemeteries still scattered throughout the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

If visiting the graves of our own ancestors now begins with a parking fee, maybe it's time to ask what those old promises were really worth.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains, preserving Gatlinburg history and the everyday life and memory of earlier generations.

Keep on Rootin’.

Rare photographs, family stories, and historical materials help preserve the record of mountain life for future generations.

05/22/2026

Gatlinburg Roots Podcast-
Before Ober Gatlinburg: The Cabin Above the Clouds

Long before ski slopes, tramways, and mountain attractions, there was a cabin high on the Dry Pond flats of Mount Harrison.

This 17-minute audio journey follows the story of Tom and Sophie Campbell, their family, and a mountain homestead high above Gatlinburg. Nearly 2,000 feet above town, Uncle Tom and Aunt Sophie built a life among hand-hewn log walls, the sound of bee gums carrying through the mountain air, and mountain laurel pipes cured in firelight. From that ridge, they raised seven children.

In 1936, the family made a final journey down a trail remembered for generations as one that could test even the strongest traveler. This episode explores the landscape, people, and mountain life that existed long before the Gatlinburg known today.

Now streaming on Spotify.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains, preserving Gatlinburg history and the everyday life and memory of earlier generations.

Keep on Rootin’.
To contribute rare photos or family stories to this project, send a message to the page.





05/21/2026

When the Schoolbooks Didn't Match the Mountains

There was a time in the Smoky Mountains when many children walked long distances to reach a one-room schoolhouse.

Some came from farms tucked deep in the hollows.
Others crossed ridges and creek bottoms before the school bell ever rang.

Inside those classrooms, mountain children learned the same reading, writing, and arithmetic lessons taught across Tennessee.

They used the same textbooks found in mining towns, mill towns, and growing industrial cities.

But mountain life was often very different from the world described in those books.

The lessons taught reading and numbers, but they rarely explained how to rotate crops on a hillside farm.

They did not teach balanced farming practices suited to mountain soil.

They said little about raising food on steep ground, tending livestock through hard winters, or the practical knowledge families depended upon every day.

Much of that education happened somewhere else.

It happened in gardens.

It happened in barns.

It happened beside wood stoves, in cornfields, and on front porches where older generations passed knowledge to younger ones.

Mountain children learned from books at school.

But they also learned from the mountains themselves.

For many families, both educations were equally important.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains, preserving Gatlinburg history and the everyday life and memory of earlier generations.

Keep on Rootin'.

To contribute rare photos or family stories to this project, send a message to the page.

05/20/2026

Fox Hunting in Old Gatlinburg

There was a time in these mountains when fox hunting wasn’t just about the chase.

It was about the dogs.

Old mountain hunters around Gatlinburg and the Smokies often talked about listening more than watching. The real experience happened somewhere out in the dark ridges long before anybody ever saw the fox itself.

Hunters would climb up on the high ground just to hear the hounds working through the mountains below.

And according to many of the old-timers, every dog had its own voice.

Some carried a deep bawl through the hollows.
Some chopped quick and sharp.
Others would trail slow and steady through the timber.

When several dogs finally strung out behind a fox across the ridges, the mountains filled with sound.

Not noise.

Music.

One old mountain hunter described it as sounding almost like harp singing rolling through the Smokies at night, with every dog adding its own part to the chorus.

Long before radios, televisions, and traffic noise filled these valleys, mountain nights carried sounds farther than most people today could imagine.

And for many Appalachian families, the voices of hunting dogs echoing through the ridges became part of life itself.

Not everybody hunted.

But almost everybody recognized the sound.

Especially deep in the mountains after dark.

Follow the Legacy — Gatlinburg Roots is an ongoing heritage project sharing rare images, forgotten family stories, and voices from the mountains, preserving Gatlinburg history and the everyday life and memory of earlier generations. Keep on Rootin’.

To contribute rare photos or family stories to this project, send a message to the page.

Address

Gatlinburg, TN
37738

Website

https://open.spotify.com/show/5TTIYf1OYjzhfmCISCR0wQ, https://www.youtube.com/@GatlinburgRo

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