Remembrance of Things Past: Gatlinburg #5

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With Russell Bales, 1979

With Rachael Eliot, 2016

Baskins Falls. Although the area is still closed and again we have to rely on the interactive map provided by the national park and Sevier County officials, but the Baskins Creek Waterfall area appears to have burned during the firestorms that swept through the national park and Gatlinburg on Monday, November 28. 

If anyone gets to hike in and can tell me otherwise, please do so. Of course, the two-tier waterfall itself would not have burned but all the lush green—the ferns and brackens and lycopodium and galax and laurel and rhododendrons—around the falls would have burned away. 

This is one of my favorite hidden locations to hike in to. I do it often. For years, it was not on any map. There were no signs pointing the way. You just had to know were it was, and I knew. Baskins Creek is my natal water, so there is an ancestral connection. But again, anyone from old time Gatlinburg is related to all of these people I have been posting about as well. Blogging is just my way of grieving and remembering.  

The hidden Baskins Creek Waterfall was where my grandmother Pearl Mae Ogle Bales took showers when she was a barefoot girl, as did all of the rest of the large family. In those days, having a home with a running water shower would have been an amenity few homesteads could match even if it was a short walk away. 

Preston Columbus Ogle family. Circa. 1918. 
Front: Clifford, Elizabeth, Luther "Coot", Homer, Preston Columbus, Stella, Fred. Back: Walter, Russell, Pearl Mae (Bales), Arlie.

In the late 1920s, great grandfather Preston Columbus Ogle "Little Pres" sold 124.6 acres along Baskins Creek that included: "a 3-room frame house, 4 tenant houses, 2 barns, a mill, 200 apple trees and a waterfall for $3,500." P.C. sold the family property, as did all of his neighbors, to become part of a greater good: The Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

In the above photo, my grandmother Pearl Mae Ogle Bales is the young woman standing in the back row, the child sitting in his mother's lap Nancy Elizabeth Eslinger is Luther "Coot" Ogle who went on to be a prominent businessman in Gatlinburg owning the Twin Islands and Crossroads Motels and Ogle's Buffet Restaurant.

Twin Islands Motel downtown Gatlinburg

And the same water that cascades over Baskins Creek Falls eventually flows into the West Prong of the Little Pigeon River in downtown Gatlinburg and moves downstream past the Twin Islands Motel, as it should.

© 2016 From the upcoming book, 

"Vintage Gatlinburg: 
The Transformation of a Small Timber Town to a Mountain Resort
 Family Remembrances 1899-1974" 

by University of Tennessee Press author and native son  

Stephen Lyn Bales

For links to other Gatlinburg history posts click:

Noah "Bud" Ogle

Alfred Reagan

Ephraim Bales

Jim Bales & Alex Cole

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Remembrance of Things Past: Gatlinburg #4

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Photo by Bruce McCamish

For this Cherokee Orchard homesite we do not have to rely on the interactive map. I have heard from two people who have seen it still standing: Mac Post and Bruce McCamish. But from Bruce's photo above, it is easy to see it was a near miss. The firestorms that swept through the park and Gatlinburg on Monday, November 28 came to within a stone's throw away. 

The site was the home of Noah Wilson "Bud" Ogle who was born July 16, 1863 and Lucinda "Cindy" Bradley born on November 22, 1862. They were married on February 6, 1883. There is an ancestral connection. My sister Darlene Bales Brett is the family genealogist and she informs me that Noah Bud's grandfather Thomas J. Ogle was our great, great, great, great grandfather. Grandma Pearl was an Ogle which would make Noah Bud Ogle our great, great, great, great, great granduncle. 

Noah Bud's own great-grandparents were William Ogle (1756–1803) and Martha Huskey Ogle (1756–1826). They were the first Euro-American settlers in the Gatlinburg area, originally known as White Oak Flats. Most people whose roots go back over one hundred years to the hollows north of Mount LeConte are related to the Ogles, Whaleys, Huskeys, Reagans, Trenthams and even the Bales.

The Ogle home itself is saddlebag style log cabin: two rooms or pens with a chimney in the center and an open fireplace into each room. The two rooms weren't built at the same time but rather roughly five years apart as the family grew. Noah Bud and Cindy had eight children that survived until adulthood—Frances (Frankie), Leonard, Madison, Rebecca (Becky Ann), Isaac, Wilson, Winnie and Polly and one child that died in infancy.

                                                       GSMNP archives

Noah Bub Ogle barn. wiki

The building beyond the house is a classic four pen barn for keeping livestock separate. A tub mill also survives on the creek. The homestead is known as "Junglebrook," perhaps because of the rhododendron thickets that surround the stream. During Bud and Cindy's day it was known as Mill Creek, but the park service changed the name to LeConte Creek because there were so many "Mill Creeks" in the region. In 1977, the homestead was placed on The National Register of Historic Places. All the buildings were probably built in the late 1880s and early 1890s.

At one point there were other outbuildings including a so-called "weaner cabin," as was a custom of large families. It was a small cabin near the family home where the newly-wed children lived for a brief period after getting married.

© 2016 From the upcoming book, 

"Vintage Gatlinburg: 
The Transformation of a Small Timber Town to a Mountain Resort
 Family Remembrances 1899-1974" 

by University of Tennessee Press author and native son  

Stephen Lyn Bales

For link to Roaring Fork homesteads click:

Alfred Reagan

Ephraim Bales

Jim Bales & Alex Cole

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Remembrance of Things Past: Gatlinburg #3

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Photo from Wiki Media commons

The Roaring Fork area is still closed, but again relying on the interactive map provided by the national park and Sevier County officials, the Alfred Reagan Homesite with tub mill appears to be intact after the firestorms that swept through the park and Gatlinburg on Monday, November 28.

Alfred Reagan was born November 6, 1856 and married Martha Ann Bales on April 6, 1879. Martha was the older sister of Ephraim and James Wesley Bales. This would make Alfred my great great granduncle-in-law if there is such a distinction.

Although it appears to be a frame house, a closer inspection reveals a hidden secret. It is actually a saddlebag style log cabin: two rooms or pens with a chimney in the center and an open fireplace on each side. The park service states that the initial log cabin was probably built by the original owner T. R. Myers between 1886 and 1894. 

Reagan tub grist mill. wiki

Reagan himself was a jack-of-all-trades. It is also reported by the park service that he was a "farmer, miller, storekeeper, blacksmith, gunsmith and carpenter" which may indicate he knew how to make at least some money. He was also a one-time lay preacher and operated a tub grist mill to grind neighbor's corn to meal for a price. This ability to make money is probably why he was able to remodel the original log cabin with milled board paneling—inside and out—making it warmer and less drafty. At some point the front porch was added and a kitchen ell was built onto the back (since removed). Plus there's the addition of a third door in the middle of the front porch that led to a new upstairs loft and two additional rooms making the turn of the century home a Walton-ish sort of place with ample room for a big family. Alfred and Martha Ann had seven children that survived until adulthood and four that did not.
  

Finally, the home received a coat of festive paint: white, yellow and turquoise, making it a bit of a showplace, as it still is. There is a legend that he used those three colors because it was the only ones offered by Sears & Roebuck at the time. This makes a good story but is it true? One online source indicates that both the 1897 and 1900 Sears & Roebuck catalogs offered more exterior paint choices than just those. There were seven shades of green alone.

Reagan was also a good neighbor. It is reported in several places that whenever someone died in the area, he made a custom fit wooden coffin lined with whatever the bereaved family desired for no cost, a magnanimous gesture of civility and generosity. Alfred himself died in 1928 and is buried at the Bales Cemetery across the creek from the Jim Bales Homesite. His tombstone is pictured to the right. 

When I lead a heritage tour the Reagan home is always one place that we visit.

© 2016 From the upcoming book, 

"Vintage Gatlinburg: 
The Transformation of a Small Timber Town to a Mountain Resort
 Family Remembrances 1899-1974" 

by University of Tennessee Press author and native son  

Stephen Lyn Bales

For link to other Roaring Fork homesteads click:

Ephraim Bales

Jim Bales & Alex Cole

In 2015, I led a Heritage Tour of Roaring Fork for the
Great Smoky Mountain Association.

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Remembrance of Things Past: Gatlinburg #2

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Photo by Rex McDaniel

Although the area is still closed, again relying on the interactive map provided by Sevier County officials, the Ephraim Bales homesite with corn crib, barn and hog pen appears to be intact after the firestorms that swept through the national park and Gatlinburg on Monday, November 28.

Caleb & Elizabeth Reagan Bales
married 1861 

Born in January 1867, Ephraim was the son of Caleb and Elizabeth Margaret Reagan Bales and the older brother of James Wesley "Jim" Bales who lived nearby. This would make "Eph" my great, great granduncle. He married Nancy Minerva Reagan or "Nervy" (born May 26, 1873) on March 10, 1889. They had nine children that survived until adulthood and four that died much earlier. 

This excellent example of a dog trot style cabin was built by Alfred Reagan, Ephraim's brother-in-law, in 1880. Essentially it is two rooms or “pens” separated by an open breezeway or a place for the dogs to trot from one side to the other. For a time this breezeway was sealed with boards creating a third room. All were covered by a common roof on two levels and the taller room had a loft for storage and even sleeping.

The cabin is built primarily with poplar (tuliptree) logs steadied and somewhat leveled on a rock pier foundation. The sills were oak, the floor joists and floor puncheons were poplar. The gable ends and rafters were chestnut, the roofing made of rived oak. Dovetailed joints fitted the logs together and since nails were in short supply and expensive, wooden pegs secured the rest. The chimneys were cobbled together field stones held in place with mud mortar.  

Ephraim Bales lived here, never leaving the area, for 39 years. He died in 1926 and is remembered as being foul tempered and unpleasant. Perhaps that is why, to my knowledge, no photograph of Ephraim exists today. He probably threw rocks at anyone with a camera. Here's the irony: He was known for chasing people off his property, today thousands visit it every year.

On June 10, 1929, with the coming of the national park, his heirs sold 71.7 acres: 30 cleared and cultivated, 120 apple trees, 41.7 acres timbered with oak, chestnut and poplar for $2000.

© 2016 From the upcoming book, 

"Vintage Gatlinburg: 
The Transformation of a Small Timber Town to a Mountain Resort
 Family Remembrances 1899-1974" 

by University of Tennessee Press author and native son  

Stephen Lyn Bales

For link to other Roaring Fork homesteads click:

Jim Bales & Alex Cole

In 2015, Judy Collins and the Great Smoky Mountain Association invited me to lead a Heritage Tour of the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail area.

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Remembrance of Things Past: Gatlinburg #1

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Jim Bales Homesite/Alex Cole cabin: Roaring Fork, GSMNP
Photo by Gaylord Kugle used by permission

Although the area is still closed, to my knowledge, using the interactive map provided by Sevier County officials, the James Wesley "Jim" Bales homesite with the Alex Cole log cabin is intact. The location apparently survived the firestorms that swept through the national park and Gatlinburg on Monday, November 28, although it appears a portion of Roaring Fork inside the park did indeed burn.

Jim and Emma Bales married 1863.

James Wesley, known as Jim Bales was my great grandfather. He and great grandmother Emma E. Ogle Bales were the parents of my granddad Homer Daniel Bales (born January 5, 1899) who spent part of his childhood at the location. Today we call it idyllic; they would have called it hardscrabble. 

The Alex Cole cabin was relocated to the Roaring Fork homestead in 1978/79. It is log cabin that was moved from the Sugarlands to occupy the spot where the original Bales home had once been. Built in 1890, the Cole house is an excellent example of a single pen cabin, one story with a loft, constructed of chestnut hewn logs, dovetail notching and a gabled roof covered with hand-split oak shingles. At the time of the relocation the Cole cabin had been somewhat isolated and could have been vandalized.

The barn and corn crib on the site are original. In 1931, great grandfather Jim Bales sold the 116 acres, most of it wooded, for $1612.27 to become part of the national park.

Thanks Mac, for bringing this to my attention. 

The Jim Bales barn and corn crib are original to the site

© 2016 From the upcoming book, 

"Vintage Gatlinburg: 
The Transformation of a Small Timber Town to a Mountain Resort
 Family Remembrances 1899-1974" 

by University of Tennessee Press author and native son  

Stephen Lyn Bales

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unreal fire

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The firestorms in my hometown last Monday were unreal, but just so you know.

The above photo has been passed around this past week with the claim that it was taken by an evacuee fleeing Gatlinburg on Monday night. The Internet is a breeding ground for fake news. Our culture has become so addicted to sensationalist news that if it is not there, we create it. (No, Hillary Clinton's parents were simply not Romulan. The Romulan Empire had not been created when she was born.) Rule of thumb: If you believe everything you read on the Internet or facebook then you are living in an alternate reality, and it's a harsh one that's mean-spirited. 

You need to turn the computer off and go outside for a walk. That's where you will find reality: in a passing cloud, a falling leaf or a calling wren.

The above photo was actually taken on August 6, 2000 with a Kodak DC280 digital camera by John McColgan, a fire behavior analyst. The location is the East Fork of the Bitterroot River where it crosses under U.S. Highway 93 in the Bitterroot National Forest near Sula in Montana. Yes, Montana. 

The good people of Gatlinburg have suffered enough. I grew up with many of them. The fires were horrific, heartbreaking to folks who lived in the mountain getaway. There's little need to embellish or fake it.

Just sayin'.

Thank you Tony for bringing this to my attention.

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Gatlinburg fire storm

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Alex Cole cabin at the Jim Bales homesite on Roaring Fork, Great Smoky Mountains N.P. Photo by Rex McDaniel

Gatlinburg is my hometown, Baskins Creek my natal waters. My heart hurts for family, friends that have lost so much. I lost nothing material but may have lost everything memorable. 

I went to Pi Beta Phi located beside Arrowmont. My boyhood home is a short walk from both of these and walk it I often did. I graduated from Gatlinburg-Pittman High School, lived in the fun, resort town for years, walked up and down the Parkway, Reagan Drive, Airport and River Roads more times than I could possible, possible estimate. Hiked the trails around and below in the foothills of LeConte and the creek that bears its name many, many times. My family's roots go back to the 1880s and the watersheds of Roaring Fork and Baskins. Ancestral cabins are maintained by the park service. Yesterday's fury of fire storms were reported in all of these places. At this point, no one quite knows what is left. 

Governor Haslam said it was the worst fire in Tennessee in the past 100 years. Did I just hear that or is it all a bad dream? What do you say when a piece of you is forcibly removed?  

My worries and heartfelt prayers to all of my family and friends that still live in my mountain home.

One man's life can last decades, but parts of it are oh so ephemeral. 

"Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away."—James 4:14

God bless you all.

- Photo by Rex McDaniel

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post Thanksgiving hike

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Thank you to all who came on our Let's-walk-off-that-pumpkin-pie-hike yesterday at the nature center.

The Ijams Hiking Club meets once a month to hike somewhere at the nature center or on the 50-plus miles of trails that are part of the South Knoxville Urban Wilderness.

It's a fun, laid-back group of mixed ages who are not out to break any speed records. Our next hike is Saturday, December 17 at 2 o'clock. To register call 577-4717, ext. 110. Come join us. 

And thank you to this hike's volunteer leaders Amy Oakey and Eric Johnson.

Thank you Amy and Eric for planning our hike!

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Thankfulus carolinensis

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Granted this is odd.

But I was taught to be thankful for the small things and if you have enough small things to be thankful for they will outweigh the big bad things. Yesterday was Thanksgiving. That's when I found a Carolina wolf spider (Hogna carolinensis) in my shower. 

H. carolinensis is the largest wolf spider in North America and I have been looking for one to live in my basement to deal with the crickets that generally hang out down there. Not that I have anything against crickets but we all need a check and balance. As Lord Acton said, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." That's the big bad thing I am worried about.  

Wolf spiders have pretty formidable faces with eight eyes. In the photo, one pair of eyes is hidden at the top of the head. I'm not sure if they eat the crickets or merely scare them into leaving. The jury is out on that one.  

Happy post Thanksgiving. 

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giving thanks

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It's Thanksgiving. You've got your family and friends around you, and before you is a feast with more food than you can possibly eat at one sitting. In fact, it may take several. You've got turkey, dressing, cranberries, mashed potatoes, gravy, bread, yams and your Aunt Lena's pumpkin pie.

Well Aunt Lena was my aunt, but I'm sure you have a pie maker too.

Native to North America, pumpkins have always been a part of our Thanksgiving holiday. The first festival in 1621 brought together the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag, the Indian tribe who helped the Plymouth Colonists adapt to their harsh new land. The first feast was composed of fish, duck, geese, wild turkey, venison, cornbread with nuts, succotash—an Algonquian dish of shelled beans and green corn—and for dessert, pumpkin stewed in maple sap.

I once made this last dish, and it’s actually quite good.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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birding for homeschoolers

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Hey, what are you guys looking at?

Was that a song sparrow? Or a Carolina wren? It was moving fast, what did you see? It was brownish, low to the ground, moving through the bushes.

Yesterday's topic was backyard birds for the Ed-Ventures @ Ijams homeschool class I hosted at the nature center. Ed-Ventures @ Ijams is a total of eight classes each based on one of the natural sciences. Last month it was entomology, i.e. insects. Yesterday it was ornithology, i.e. we went birdwatching. Next month's topic is geology. And we have a lot of rocks to look at with two abandoned quarries.

For more information call Lauren at 577-4717, ext. 135.

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Arboretum Society thank you

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A special thank you goes out to Lynda Haynes and the University of Tennessee Arboretum Society for inviting me to speak at their annual meeting. 

Arboretum folks love trees, so do woodpeckers. My topic was about our local woodpecker species in general and briefly about the very non-native species I spent three years of my life with: the ivory-billed woodpecker. Although I have never seen the legendary Ghost Bird, I did write a book about UT's own James T. Tanner and his search for ivorybills in the 1930s.

Penning the book with the help of his late wife Nancy was one of my life's most memorable events.

Miss you, Nancy! 

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twice baked pellets

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Great horned owl pellet mostly made up of fur and bones

"Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah, Someone's in the kitchen I know oh-oh-oh."

Well, that's not true. It's just me, Dinah did not show oh-oh-oh. I think the baked goods on the agenda were a little too gro-oh-oss for her.

This morning, it's owl pellets being sterilized for this afternoon's Girl Scout Detective Badge workshop at the nature center. 

Whooo ya lookin' at?

Owls cannot chew their food, so they swallow it more or less whole, letting their stomachs squeeze out all the nutrients it contains. Roughly, eight hours after the meal, they regurgitate (upchuck) a pellet filled with all that could not be digested, mostly fur and bones. Then a smart young naturalist Girl Scout can dissect the mass and discover the bones of its last victim. Sort of like CSI forensic scientists.

And the owl pellet dissection is just one of the four activities we have planned. 

Sterilized Pellet Recipe: 
A) Find a regurgitated owl pellet 
B) Wrap the pellet in aluminum foil, place on cookie sheet 
C) Bake at 325 degrees for 40 minutes.

Since an owl pellet is essentially baked once in the bird's stomach, my oven baking was the second. Oddly, it made the house smell like roasted walnuts and burnt hair.

Hint: It's better to do your prep work outside on an old table.

For a look at our last Animal Detectives class click: workshop. 

Now we know the predator and the prey

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it's time for winter birds

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Do you know this bird?

If not, you should come to my class on winter birds, tomorrow at Ijams.  Here's the details.

Saturday, November 12, 10:30 a.m.

Birding and Brunch at Ijams

(All Ages) Join me for this fun and lighthearted look into the world of winter birds. Burr! I’ll discuss birds like the pied-billed grebe, hermit thrush, winter wren, yellow-bellied sapsucker, golden-crowned kinglet and many others that only send their winter months in the Tennessee Valley and where to find them. The bird pictured above likes to be low to the ground, forging in brush piles often near water.  

A light brunch will be provided. The fee for this program is $5 for Ijams members and $8 for non-members. Please call (865) 577-4717, ext. 110 to register.

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