White East Tennessee is not a community as such, for this article we will treat it as one.

East Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee defined in state law. Geographically and socioculturally distinct, it comprises approximately the eastern third of the U.S. state of Tennessee. The Largest city is Knoxville and the demonym for residents is East Tennessean.

East Tennessee consists of 33 counties, 30 located within the Eastern Time Zone and three counties in the Central Time Zone, namely Bledsoe, Cumberland, and Marion.

East Tennessee is entirely located within the Appalachian Mountains, although the landforms range from densely forested 6,000-foot mountains to broad river valleys.

The region contains the major cities of Knoxville and Chattanooga, Tennessee’s third and fourth largest cities, respectively, and the Tri-Cities, the state’s sixth largest population center.

We feature many photos from our trip in the section below. If you want to see any of them in a larger format, just click on that image.

Libby and Ken’s East Tennessee Anniversary Trip

On March 30th, 2023  we celebrated our 38th wedding anniversary with a trip to various locations in East Tennessee that we had been wanting to visit.

Our first stop was the RT Lodge in Maryville. All the facilities and grounds are exceptional! A very lovely and peaceful place to relax.

The Lodge and property were once a part of Maryville College. It was built in the early 1930’s.

In the late 1990’s, the Ruby Tuesday restaurant franchise purchased the lodge for a company retreat and named it the RT Lodge. As time went by, additional buildings were built, and the lodge converted to a public lodge and restaurant.

A local group of investors purchased the lodge from Ruby Tuesday in 2021 and has been running it since.

All the facilities and grounds are exceptional! A very lovely and peaceful place to relax!

The restaurant was first class! The food was great! We already have a review of the restaurant which you can read here.

The next day of we finally got to spend some time and see some of the history of East Tennessee.

First we visited the “Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center” in Townsend, Tennessee. Townsend in located right on the border of “The Great Smoky Mountain National Park.”

Inside the gallery of the center is a very nice museum. It is full of artifacts of the area going back to prehistoric times.

Exhibits included how native Indians lived over the centuries as well a how settlers lived over time into the mid 1900’s.

Then, outside is a walking tour of actual historic buildings that have been moved here. Some with additional exhibits in them as well.

John Walker (no relation to Johnnie Walker)

Below is a bed in a cabin early 1800’s made by John Walker. It has a straw mattress the quilt is homemade from that period as well.

And below is a cantilevered pole barn from the 1820’s. The overhang would shelter livestock from the rain and sun. We saw some photos of these barns that were cantilevered all the way around.

Charles Williams and His Still

The history of the Smoky Mountains is chock full of tales of moonshine! In one of the out-buildings is this actual still.

“You are viewing one of the best kept secrets of the Smoky Mountains—an infamous still, whose ingenious underground location kept law enforcement officers and revenuers searching for it unsuccessfully for years!

The still was built in 1960 by Charles J. Williams and his family, of Carrs Creek, who kept the entire operation hidden under his shed. It is on extended loan to the museum by his son, Mike Williams.

Especially during the Great Depression, the production and sale of liquor (known also as “white lighting,” “moonshine,” or “good ole mountain dew”) was a source of income which provided food and clothing for many of the mountain families of East Tennessee.

This was especially true in Mr. Williams’ case. Using a family recipe passed down from Irish relatives, his divorced mother resorted to making liquor in order to supply her family with the basics needed for survival.”

Click on the images to view full sized

The John Oliver Place

After the Heritage Center, there was still time in the day and we wondered about Cade’s Cove in the National Park.

Cade’s Cove is full of historic old buildings and has beautiful scenery and lot’s of wildlife. It is also the most visited section of the park.

During the tourist season the eleven mile loop road will be bumper to bumper the whole way with cars from all over the country.

We thought we might have a shot of less traffic at this time of year and headed on up there. We were right! It was lighter traffic.

Oh, I forgot to tell you. The road is one way. You go the speed of the slowest car in front of you until you can get to a place to park.

Here’s the John Oliver Place and its story:

John and Lucretia Oliver, the original owners of the cabin, were the first permanent white settlers in Cades Cove. When they moved to Cades Cove in the 1820s, the only road into the cove was a primitive trail and there was not a working grist mill.

In the absence of a grist mill, the Olivers had to beat corn into cornmeal using only a mortar and pestle. During the early years, Lucretia feared she would starve to death.

Now, the Oliver cabin is one of the most visited historical structures in the National Park. The cabin is held together by gravity and notched corners – it does not need pegs or nails to hold it together.

Although the National Park Service eventually took control of the structure, it was one of the last historical structures to be vacated. The cabin remained in the Oliver family for over 100 years!

Click to view full sized

The Dan Lawson Place

Here’s the Dan Lawson Place. The main house and barn are in pretty rough shape. That’s the main house above and that’s Ken standing by the smokehouse below.

In 1856, Dan Lawson constructed a cabin on land that had originally belonged to his father-in-law, Peter Cable. What makes this cabin unique for the 1850s in the Smoky Mountains is the presence of a brick chimney.

The bricks used were handmade on the property, as was common in Cades Cove at the time. It’s believed that Peter Cable, who worked as a carpenter, assisted Dan Lawson in building the cabin, given the exquisite woodwork and architectural details.

The original cabin was made from logs, dating back to before the Civil War, but it underwent modifications over the years, including the addition of sawed lumber.

Lawson gradually expanded his land holdings, eventually owning a substantial stretch of land that extended from one ridge to another. ⛰️

In later years, the cabin was enlarged, adding a second story and a porch.

This porch served as the location for the post office that operated from his home. Additionally, the Dan Lawson Place property included a corn crib 🌽 and a smokehouse.

You can visit the Dan Lawsone Place in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Townsend, TN 37882

The History of East Tennessee

If you’re into history, the state of Tennessee is for you, particularly East Tennessee!

During the American Civil War, many East Tennesseans remained loyal to the Union even as the state seceded and joined the Confederacy.

Early in the war, Unionist delegates unsuccessfully attempted to split East Tennessee into a separate state that would remain as part of the Union.

After the war, a number of industrial operations were established in cities in the region.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), created by Congress during the Great Depression in the 1930s, spurred economic development and helped to modernize the region’s economy and society.

The TVA would become the nation’s largest public utility provider. Today, the TVA’s administrative operations are headquartered in Knoxville and its power operations are based in Chattanooga.

Oak Ridge was the site of the world’s first successful uranium enrichment operations, which were used to construct the world’s first atomic bombs, two of which were dropped on Imperial Japan at the end of World War II.

The Appalachian Regional Commission further transformed the region in the late 20th century.

East Tennessee Geography

East Tennessee is both geographically and culturally part of Appalachia.

Along with Western North Carolina, North Georgia, Eastern Kentucky, Southwest Virginia, West Virginia, Western Maryland, and Southwestern Pennsylvania, East Tennessee has been included in every major definition of the Appalachian region since the early 20th century.

East Tennessee is home to the nation’s most visited national park— the Great Smoky Mountains National Park— and hundreds of smaller recreational areas.

East Tennessee is often considered the birthplace of country music, due largely to the 1927 Victor recording sessions in Bristol, and throughout the 20th and 21st centuries has produced a steady stream of musicians of national and international fame.

This may seem counterintuitive as Nashville is not in East Tennessee but rather the central region.

The major cities of East Tennessee are Knoxville, which is near the geographic center of the region; Chattanooga*, which is in southeastern Tennessee at the Georgia border; and the “Tri-Cities” of Bristol, Johnson City, and Kingsport, located in the extreme northeastern most part of the state.

Of the ten metropolitan statistical areas in Tennessee designated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), six are in East Tennessee.

Also designated by the OMB in East Tennessee are the Knoxville-Sevierville-La Follette, Chattanooga-Cleveland-Athens and Tri-Cities combined statistical areas.

* Chattanooga Choo Choo

Song by Glenn Miller Orchestra – 1941

Pardon me, boy
Is that the Chattanooga choo choo?

[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2aj0zhXlLA” width=”800″ height=”16003″ alt=”Glenn Miller – Chattanooga Choo Choo – Sun Valley Serenade (1941)” rel=”no” modestbranding=”yes” title=”Glenn Miller – Chattanooga Choo Choo – Sun Valley Serenade (1941)”]

We hope you enjoyed the trip to East Tennessee!

Come visit us in person the next time you’re in our neck of the woods.

~ Libby and Ken