Unveiling the Smokies’ Hidden Stories Through Campbell’s Photographs
I
‘ve mentioned Frank Harvey in the past. He is descended from Smokies royalty, claiming the bloodline of Grandpa Carlos Campbell. Many have passed that overlook on our way up to Newfound Gap. Carlos was instrumental in the founding of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
While whacking at ice walls together out in Colorado, Frank casually mentioned that he was in possession
of some straggler photographs from Grandpa. Harvey and family descendants had graciously agreed to donate the majority of Campbell’s photography to the park. My personal view of the archives at Great Smoky Mountains National Park invokes the closing scenes of the Indiana Jones movie where they took the Ark of the Covenant, boxed it up, and shoved it into a corner of a warehouse never to be seen by human eyes again. I jumped at the chance to take temporary possession of these remaining photos.
Right off the bat, one shot of a trail heading up to Mount LeConte caught my eye. Despite having been freshly cut from the hillside, I recognized this path immediately as Bullhead. All photos were numbered and descriptions inked on the back in Campbell’s own hand.
Shuffling through the pile. I spy another black and white image of a firetower and first thought it could be Mount Sterling but read it was the now defunct Greenbrier Pinnacle Tower. There is no official trail up there anymore.
Only the hardiest of trail hikers can bushwhack up to this spot. What they will find is bare ground where a building and beautiful tower once reached towards the clouds.
Speaking of towers, the next one that I gravitated towards was familiar. Before its recent name change to the indigenous Kuwohi, Clingmans Dome was home to a wooden observation tower that sits where the concrete walkway and circular deck now reside. I can only imagine how thrilling it would have been to ride up state road 71 back in the late ’30s and escort your children the few sets of stairs up to this overlook.
What they likely would have seen on one of those rare clear days up on the Smokies’ highest prominence was the longest vista down into Carolina via Deep Creek. Inevitably that shaconage view—the Cherokee name for the mountains, which translated means the “Land of Blue Smoke”—was accompanied by fresh scars from the lumber companies trying to get in their last whacks before the park was commissioned.
I didn’t have to look at the back of this next picture to know exactly where it was. It’s one of those magic, almost spiritual places in the park where morning rays of sun filter through the poplars as you shake out the dew from moist nylon or, in this case, canvas. I have been awakened in the middle of the night at this very spot by wild hogs rooting around my tent. I’ve nursed campfires so wet here that the smoke engulfed the entire saddle.
Many are the nights we stumbled down from atop Gregory’s Bald to settle into our digs here at Sheep Pen Gap. Gabardine- and wool-clad backpackers mill about the background in this idyllic scene. You can almost smell the coffee percolating over smoldering embers.
The last photo is one I assumed had been published somewhere. I phoned up Frank to verify, but he didn’t know. I performed a Google image search and, to my surprise, nothing popped up. Among this trove in my temporary possession is a stately profile shot of Polly Walker. Polly and her five sisters—their sixth sister had married and moved away—were one of the last families to inhabit Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Nestled in their Little Greenbrier cabin, these hardy women subsisted in the same manner as their forebears well into the 1960s. The park made a special allowance for them and only a small group of others, and the Walker Sisters’ cabin stands testament today. There’s plenty of documented history about these women from their homespun clothing to the butter they churned. So many visitors stopped by after the park creation that they actually had to ask the NPS to turn people away as they were unable to attend to daily chores as a result.
Absorbing the profile of Polly, I wondered about Campbell’s relationship to them and their feelings about his efforts to cordon off their half million acres for future generations. Although I never had the privilege of meeting the guy who passed well before my birth, I know his grandson pretty well. Frank Harvey and I have worked together on public land access issues through the East Tennessee Climbers Coalition and, my favorite organization, the Southern Forest Watch. Frank recalled stories about Grandpa Campbell being bitten by a rattlesnake. Another incident involved some hooves from an uncompliant deer that was not so appreciative of his photographic talents.
Knowing what I know about Harvey, it isn’t difficult for me to make the stretch to Carlos. I suspect Campbell held a deep affinity for the Walker sisters and their situation. They would, according to the NPS, be the last indigenous settlers to finish out their days here. His camera captured a mixture of joy and sadness in the stoic image of Miss Walker. It is a strange collision between death and birth. One giving rise to the other. I want to think that the Walker sisters understood the necessity of what Campbell was doing despite the bittersweet implications. I know that through Campbell’s photography, I certainly do.
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