United States

Department of

Agriculture

Forest Service

Southern

Research Station

General Technical

Report SRS-18

The Southern Appalachians:

A History of the Landscape

Susan L. Yarnell
_____________

The Author:

_____________

Susan L. Yarnell is a Researcher with the Forest History Society,

701 Vickers Avenue, Durham, NC 27701.

Cover: Yellow Poplar in the Big Sandy River Valley, Virginia, 1910.

Unless otherwise noted, all photographs in this publication were provided by

the Forest History Society, Durham, NC.

May 1998

Southern Research Station

P.O. Box 2680

Asheville, North Carolina 28802
Contents

Page

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Prehistory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Paleo-Indian Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Archaic Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Woodland and Mississippian Periods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Early History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

European Settlement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Early 19th Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Civil War and Its Aftermath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Late 19th Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Early 20th Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Early Conservation in the Southern Appalachians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Great Depression and New Deal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

World War II and the 1950’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Recent Decades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Acknowledgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Literature Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Appendix

Plant Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Animal Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

i

Abstract

Natural and geological processes have changed the Southern Appalachian

landscape repeatedly over millions of years. About 12,000 years ago,

humans arrived and became important agents of change. People affected

their environment by hunting, by spreading the seeds of plants they had

gathered, by disturbing the vegetation around their habitations, and by

increasing the frequency of fires. The extent and degree of human

influence increased along with the population. In the Late Archaic period,

horticulture expanded the impact of humans on the landscape. The first

Europeans and Africans reached the Southern Appalachians in the 1500’s.

Their arrival disrupted American Indian societies with new forms of trade,

warfare, and disease. By the late 1700’s, only the Cherokee remained in

the southern mountains. Thereafter, European settlers and African slaves

established an economy based on farming, livestock, small-scale industry,

and tourism. Market hunting greatly reduced wildlife populations, and

grazing livestock affected vegetation. After reversals during the Civil War,

mining, lumbering, and tourism emerged as the largest influences on the

environment. Deforestation, erosion, pollution, fires, and floods became

prevalent. Concern for conservation grew alongside industry, and, by the

early 1900’s, both public and private agencies were involved in managing

the resources and landscape of the Southern Appalachians. Conservation

and resource use have fluctuated throughout the 20th century in response to

economic trends and historical events. Parks and wilderness areas have

provided refuges for native plants and animals, whereas in national forests

managers have sought to regulate resource extraction. Nevertheless,

pressure remains intense on the Southern Appalachian landscape, and

management issues bring contention as different groups seek to use the

region’s resources in different ways.

Keywords: Agriculture, environmental history, lumber industry, mining,

prehistory, Southern Appalachian, tourism.

Introduction

The Southern Appalachian region is defined primarily by

mountains. Hence, its boundaries are vague and defined

differently for different purposes. In this discussion, the

Southern Appalachians include the State of West Virginia,

southwestern Virginia, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee,

western North Carolina and South Carolina, northern Georgia,

and northeastern Alabama (fig. 1). This largely social

definition follows the example of the Appalachian Regional

Commission (1973) and studies such as Mountaineers and

Rangers (Mastran and Lowerre 1983). Although all parts of

the Southern Appalachians can alternatively be described as

parts of other regions or States, their shared characteristics

and identity as a region warrant studying the Southern

Appalachians as a whole. In addition to a mountainous

landscape, these areas share a common history alternating

between cultural exchange and isolation from prehistory

through the modern era. The region falls inside the boundaries

of the American South and, thus, shares in the South’s

colonial, antebellum, and Civil War history. At the same time,

the Southern Appalachians are distinguishable politically,

economically, and socially from the South as a whole. 

Understanding the dynamics of the Southern Appalachian

landscape requires an understanding of how that landscape

developed. The “natural” environment of a region is the

result of a long history of change involving geology,

climate, disturbance and stability, plants, and animals. The

Southern Appalachian landscape is a very old one, the

result of ancient geological processes and millions of years

of weathering and climatic change. This long history

resulted in a varied landscape and an exceptionally diverse

assemblage of indigenous plants and animals. Although

never glaciated, the Southern Appalachian climate shifted

as the glaciers advanced and retreated. Variations in

vegetation and animal species accompanied these climatic

shifts as tundra, parkland, and boreal environments

expanded and contracted. Remnant populations of

The Southern Appalachians:

A History of the Landscape

Susan L. Yarnell

Figure 1—Southern Appalachian Region as defined in this publication.
periglacial species found permanent niches within the

varied topography and microclimates of the Southern

Appalachians, whereas subtropical and temperate species

colonized the lower elevations during warmer periods. 

Local disturbances have also been important to the

composition and structure of the Southern Appalachian

environment. Fire, windstorms, ice storms, snow storms,

and soil movement have produced a mosaic of vegetation

across the landscape. The degree and aspect of slopes affect

rainfall and soil moisture. Catastrophic events, such as large

fires and storms, produce even-aged stands of trees within

affected areas. Both large-scale and single-tree deaths

provide openings for species adapted to disturbance,

whereas sites subject to periodic burning favor fire-tolerant

species, particularly conifers and oak (Fryer 1996: 94–991

).

Regionally, the result is a patchwork of vegetation

reflecting the particular histories of each locale. Human

activity has also greatly affected the landscape. The role of

humans in shaping the environment of the Southern

Appalachians has drawn close scrutiny since the rise of the

conservation movement during the 19th century. At the time,

burgeoning mining and lumber industries were making

rapid and conspicuous changes in the landscape. However,

the impact of people on their environment has a much

longer history. Hunting, plant gathering, home building,

farming, trade, war, and industries are centuries old, and

their impact on the Southern Appalachians is centuries old

as well. The following discussion will consider how

humans have affected the Southern Appalachian

environment. 

Prehistory

Paleo-Indian Period

Around 12,000 years ago, humans arrived in the Southern

Appalachians. Fluted stone projectile points dating to the

Paleo-Indian period (10,000 to 8,000 B.C.) have been found

throughout the region. Manufactured from local stone, the

points indicate Paleo-Indians were inhabitants of the

Southern Appalachians rather than migrants or occasional

visitors (Purrington 1983: 108). At the time of Paleo-Indian

arrival, the Southern Appalachian climate was cooler and

wetter than it is today. Boreal forests of spruce and pine

with open parklands still dominated the landscape. By the

end of this period, however, mixed oak- hickory forests

became predominant with spruce remaining only at the

highest elevations (Delcourt and others 1985). 

As the environment changed, its human occupants changed.

Paleo-Indians are generally characterized as small bands of

nomadic hunters who relied on large game, particularly

megafauna such as mammoths and mastodons. Megafaunal

remains from the Big Bone Lick site in Kentucky may point

to Paleo-Indian reliance on large game. However, evidence

from other areas of Eastern North America suggests broader

use of resources including white-tailed deer, elk, small

game, birds, fish, and plant foods. As the climate changed,

these resources increased in importance as the basis of

Paleo-Indian subsistence (Tankersley 1990: 91). PaleoIndian archaeological sites in the northern Shenandoah

Valley of Virginia include settled base camps near sources

of stone for tool production with hunting sites in upland

areas. This pattern of sites suggests long-term occupation of

specific territories rather than wide-ranging migration. Most

other finds in the Southern Appalachians are from upland

areas, and probably resulted from Paleo-Indians hunting for

grazers on tundra habitats (Purrington 1983: 107–109).

Archaic Period

The Early Archaic period (7,500 to 5,500 B.C.) continued

the pattern of base camps and upland hunting. Rock shelter

sites from northern Alabama to eastern Kentucky have

yielded the remains of butchered animals, including deer,

elk, beaver, bird, and turtle (DeJarnett and others 1962,

Jefferies 1990: 206). Likewise, tools made from local stone

occur in many areas (Purrington 1983: 110–121). In

contrast, sites in the Great Smoky Mountains and Pisgah

National Forest contain tools made of stone from the Valley

and Ridge province to the west. These findings may indicate

that groups living in the Valley and Ridge area used the high

mountains only as a hunting territory. Tools made of local

materials do not appear here until near the end of the Early

Archaic period. Rather than residential remains, Smoky

Mountain sites yield evidence of hunting, flintworking,

butchering, hideworking, and woodworking (Bass 1977: 51,

67; Purrington 1983). Of course, undiscovered residential

sites may exist in the Appalachian Summit area. If so, use of

nonlocal stone may indicate an exchange network between

the regions (Chapman 1985: 148). 

Hunting-related activities also occurred at residential sites.

In addition, plant-processing tools, such as manos and

metates, document the gathering of plants around residential

sites; such tools are not in evidence at upland sites. New

technologies may have made their appearance at this time.

Well-preserved red clay hearths in the Little Tennessee

Valley bear impressions of textiles and basketry, the earliest

reliably dated example of weaving in Eastern North

America (Chapman and Adovasio 1977: 624). Reflecting

these varied activities, base camp locations show human

reliance on diverse microenvironments and flood plain

resources. The same pattern appears in eastern Kentucky,

the Watauga Valley of North Carolina, and West Virginia as

well as in the Valley and Ridge province (Broyles 1971,

Chapman 1985, Jefferies 1990: 206–207). 

2

1 Numbers after the colon indicate where the information is located in the

text.
Although most plant remains were acorns and hickory nuts,

other remains recovered in the interior eastern woodlands of

North America suggest broad utilization of forest and forest

edge resources. The seeds, berries, and nuts of 20 plant

species have been found in Early Archaic sites. Besides oak

and hickory, these include: beech, hazelnut, walnut and

butternut, chestnut, hackberry, persimmon, copperleaf,

pigweed, goosefoot, bunchgrass, canary grass, pokeweed,

knotweed, purslane, sumac, and grape.2 Plant collecting

added to human impact on the land through increased seed

dispersal. People carried plant foods away from parent

plants, sometimes into new habitats, while their camps

provided small areas of disturbed soil that encouraged the

growth of weedy species. The result was an increase in

range for plants that provided food for humans (Smith

1992: 282). 

Middle Archaic cultures (5,500 to 3,000 B.C.) built upon

earlier practices in refining and expanding the exploitation

of their environments. During this period, people apparently

made broad use of their local landscapes; settlements were

dispersed across both valley and upland zones. At the same

time, the predominance of local stone in the production of

tools implies a localized population (Bass 1977: 71–72,

Purrington 1983: 122–125). New tools included the atlatl

(spear-thrower) and net weights for fishing, suggesting

changes in hunting strategy and an increased reliance on

fishing (Chapman 1985: 148, Davis and Daniel 1990). A

warmer and drier climatic period changed stream flow,

expanding backwater and stream shallows. As a result,

aquatic resources became more abundant and more

accessible (Smith 1992). 

Like the preceding periods, the Late Archaic period (3,000

to 1,000 B.C.) presents no sharp breaks with the past.

Regional specialization grew from earlier generalized

adaptations, and resource use expanded on established

practice. People continued to rely on hunting, fishing, and

plant gathering for their livelihood. Shell middens in some

areas (northern Georgia and Alabama, the panhandle of

West Virginia) show an increased use of freshwater

shellfish, and many groups expanded their use of riverine

resources (Bass 1977: 109; Davis and Daniel 1990: 256;

Jefferies 1990: 153, 209; McMichael 1968: 10). The most

striking development for both humans and their

environment came toward the end of this era. Horticulture

based on native crops emerged between 2,500 and 1,000

B.C. in the upper South, west of the Appalachians, and the

lower Midwest, including eastern Kentucky and Tennessee.

Gourds, squash, and sunflowers are still familiar to us. Seed

crops no longer known in their cultivated forms were also

important. The earliest of these were goosefoot, marshelder, and maygrass. Little barley (fig. 2) and knotweed

were domesticated later during the first millennium A.D.

(Smith 1992: 287–289, Yarnell 1994).

Until the advent of horticulture, only 10 percent of the

wood preserved as charcoal in archaeological sites

represents species favored by disturbed environments. From

this period forward, until the arrival of Europeans and

Africans in North America, the proportion of wood charcoal

from pine, redcedar, tuliptree, and cane increased steadily to

a maximum of 50 percent (Chapman and others 1982). The

increase probably reflects conditions immediately

surrounding human habitations in river valleys rather than

those of the entire landscape. American Indians continued

to use uplands until the historic era primarily for hunting

and for gathering from nut-bearing trees. 

American Indians cleared land by girdling trees to kill them.

Smaller vegetation was then burned, both to clear the ground

for crops and to provide fertilizing ash. New fields were

cleared as yields declined in the old fields, allowing

secondary forests to reclaim the land. When enough time

had passed to restore the fertility of the soil, these areas were

cleared anew. These activities also extended the forest edge,

3

2 The appendix provides complete scientific names of all vegetation

mentioned in this publication.

Figure 2—Little barley (Hordeum pusillum Nutt.), an important crop in

eastern North America during the Woodland period. (Harbarium of

Arizona State University photo.)
providing more habitat for important game animals including

white-tailed deer and turkey. Certain plant foods, particularly

berries, grapes, and persimmon, also became more

abundant. Thus, agriculture augmented wild and cultivated

food supplies, and the human population increased

(Chapman and others 1982, Fritz 1990, Yarnell 1982).

Woodland and Mississippian Periods

During the Late Archaic period (3,000 to 1,000 B.C.), the

people of the Southern Appalachians were clearly involved

in cultural developments occurring beyond their own

region. The spread of plant husbandry illustrates this spread

of ideas. However, change occurred at different rates within

the region. Evidence of gardening does not appear until the

Middle Woodland period (300 B.C. to A.D. 600) in either

the Appalachian Summit or the Allegheny Highlands of

West Virginia. The people in these areas continued to live in

base camps along alluvial terraces and in seasonal camps in

the uplands (Davis 1978: 46–48, Purrington 1983: 133). 

There are several possible explanations for this time lag. The

rugged terrain may have slowed the diffusion of horticulture

over the mountains; however, other types of exchange

between eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina

occurred in spite of the terrain. Soapstone bowls were

exchanged for slate tools between the eastern slopes of the

Appalachians and the Valley and Ridge province (Chapman

1985: 150–151). Another innovation, ceramics, spread

throughout the Southern Appalachians during Early

Woodland times (1,000 to 200 B.C.) including areas where

horticulture was not evident (Chapman 1985: 152, Keel

1976: 211, McMichael 1968: 10, Purrington 1983: 131,

Railey 1990: 250). Furthermore, the first evidence for

Appalachian mining and trade in copper appears in Early and

Middle Woodland sites. Archaeologists have recovered

copper from the Southern Appalachians in Alabama,

Georgia, and Florida (Goad 1978: 109). Because residents of

the high mountains traded with horticulturalists, they

probably had some knowledge of plant husbandry. Therefore,

lower population densities and shorter growing seasons were

probably as important as isolation in slowing the adoption of

plant cultivation in the higher mountains. Moreover, the

relative scarcity of good soils and the drier climate in the rain

shadow of the mountains hindered gardening. Under these

conditions, the difference in return for the effort of gardening

versus that of foraging was probably lower in the highlands

than on the western slopes of the Appalachians. 

The emergence and spread of more intensive husbandry is

associated with the first archaeological evidence of

increasing social complexity. Burials began to differ among

individuals in the amount and kind of goods interred with

the body. Adena was one of the earliest complex cultures to

affect the Southern Appalachians. Appearing in southern

Ohio about 500 B.C., this culture spread into the mountains

of Kentucky and western West Virginia. Adena sites include

burial mounds, earthen enclosures, small habitations, and

rock shelters (fig. 3). In addition to plant remains indicative

of plant cultivation, Adena sites have yielded items made

from materials obtained through long-distance exchange

networks (McMichael 1968: 15; Railey 1990: 253,

315–316). Shared ceramic styles in northern Georgia,

southwestern North Carolina, and eastern Tennessee point

to another sphere of cultural interaction and exchange in the

southernmost mountains (Keel 1976: 228–229).

Between A.D. 1 and A.D. 200, the Hopewell culture from

southern Ohio began to influence the people of the

Southern Appalachians. This culture was similar to Adena,

but its burials and settlement patterns reveal an increase in

both status differentiation and participation in exchange

networks (Railey 1990: 254). Hopewell society was based

on intensified premaize horticulture (Smith 1992: 201–248).

Contact with the Hopewell culture through trade for copper,

mica, soapstone, quartz crystals, and local schists

influenced different parts of the Southern Appalachians to

different degrees. A few sites with burial mounds reflect the

influence of Hopewellian mortuary practices. Many other

sites contain Hopewell ceramics and stone artifacts

(Chapman and Keel 1979: 161, Davis 1978: 46–47, Railey

1990: 326). 

A third important cultural influence for the Southern

Appalachian peoples came from southern and central

Georgia. Ceramics from Georgia have been found in

significant amounts in western North Carolina and eastern

Tennessee, whereas copper from the Southern Appalachians

has been found as far south as Florida (Chapman 1973,

1985; Cridlebaugh 1981; Goad 1978: 186; Schroedl 1978).

This southern influence continued to be important after

Hopewell influence had faded during the Late Woodland

period (A.D. 500 to 1000) and may have been involved in

the rise of South Appalachian Mississippian culture (A.D.

1000 to 1540) (Ferguson 1971). Although not as dependent

on planting as their trading partners to the north and south,

South Appalachian societies apparently increased their

reliance on plant husbandry between A.D. 200 and A.D.

1000. Settlements shifted to the floodplains with temporary

camps to exploit upland resources. Social structure became

more complex as well. Differing burials reflecting status

differences between individuals began by A.D. 600

(Purrington 1983: 138–141).

Other important changes occurred during these centuries:

the rapid diffusion of the bow and arrow throughout eastern

North America and the increasing importance of crops

introduced from Mexico. Central American crops—maize,

beans, pumpkin, cushaw, amaranth, and tobacco—were

introduced into eastern North America from the Middle

Woodland through early Mississippian periods (Nassaney

and Cobb 1991: 313–314, Railey 1990: 257, Smith 1992:

274–276). Present in east Tennessee as early as A.D. 175,

maize was not an important crop until after A.D. 800 when

4
new varieties adapted to shorter growing seasons made it a

viable crop at higher altitudes (Chapman and Crites 1987,

Smith 1992: 274–276). Tobacco was grown east of presentday St. Louis after A.D. 500, and beans spread into eastern

North America after A.D. 1000 (Smith 1992: 291–293).

This era of agricultural change coincided with increasing

reliance on agriculture and increasing population density.

Wild foods continued to be important in all regions, but

people living in the southern mountains made domesticated

plants a larger part of their diet than they had in earlier

periods (Yarnell 1976). 

Between A.D. 1000 and 1500, growing populations created

more complex societies. People lived primarily in river

valleys, both in larger and more permanent villages and in

scattered farmsteads. In the narrow valleys of the

Appalachians, settlements clustered in areas with fertile

soils in proximity to shoals for fishing. Houses were

constructed of wood posts covered with cane wattle and

clay daub or large pieces of bark. Civic structures included

earth-banked buildings, public plazas, and platform

mounds, some of which show use over several centuries.

Social ranking was apparently more important in the

southernmost mountains than in eastern Kentucky,

southwestern Virginia, and West Virginia. Northern Georgia

and Alabama, eastern Tennessee, and western North

Carolina were part of the Lamar and Qualla culture areas.

The development of chiefdoms in these areas after A.D.

1200 was marked by high-status burial goods including

marine shell and sea turtle shell from the coast as well as

ornaments made from mica and copper (Dickens 1976: 131;

Hally 1994a: 144–174; Lewis 1990: 442; Purrington 1983:

142–149; Sharp 1990: 470, 512–527; Wynn 1990: 42–55). 

By the time the first Europeans entered the Southern

Appalachians in 1540, chiefdoms were important political

units in the Southeast. They varied in size from a few towns

and kin groups to paramount chiefdoms incorporating

numerous social and kin groups (Widmer 1994: 126).

Coosa, with authority stretching from the confluence of the

French Broad and Tennessee Rivers to the vicinity of

Talladega in Alabama, was one of the largest of the Lamar

chiefdoms (Hudson 1994: 86). Its towns ranged in size from

1 to 6 hectares (2.5 to 15 acres) (Hally 1994b: 231–233). A

Spanish description of Coosa in 1540 refers to “numerous

and large towns with fields between, extending from one to

another” (Elvas 1993: 76). These settlements were

interspersed with thinly settled or uninhabited regions

where human influence on the landscape was much lighter

(Hally 1994b: 249). Even in densely populated Coosa, the

5

Figure 3—Rock Bridge Shelter, a woodland site in Wolfe County, Kentucky. (Photo by Kristen J. Gremillion.)
ridges were “well-wooded,” and outside the cultivated

valleys, the land was “all forest” (Priestly 1928: 241).

In western North Carolina, the Qualla culture was ancestral

to the Cherokee. Although it was less complex than Coosa,

early descriptions of the Qualla landscape were similar to

that of Coosa, including palisaded towns and large expanses

of cultivated fields. The Fort Ancient cultures of eastern

Kentucky and West Virginia also built villages, often in a

circular pattern around central plazas. Like their neighbors

to the south, Fort Ancient villages were sometimes

protected by wooden palisades. Smaller communities in

eastern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia show fewer

signs of social hierarchies. However, all areas shared an

economy based on farming, hunting, and gathering wild

plant foods (Dickens 1976). 

Although separated by hundreds of miles, these cultures

were not isolated. All participated to some degree in trade,

warfare, and diplomacy. Heavily traveled routes, such as the

“Great Warrior Path,” connected communities from the

Kanawha River in West Virginia to the towns of northern

Alabama. Side branches took in the Shenandoah Valley,

northern Georgia, and western North Carolina. These trails

joined a network of paths connecting the southern

mountains with communities and cultures from the

Northeast and Great Lakes to the gulf and Atlantic coasts.

Other trails stretched west to the Mississippi River and

beyond (Tanner 1989: 6–20). 

The Southern Appalachians were cultural landscapes deeply

influenced by human activity. Towns, farmsteads, and fields

were interspersed with old-growth forest used primarily for

hunting and gathering nuts. Secondary forests grew on old

fields in various stages of regrowth, providing fuel, building

supplies, and an augmented supply of wild plant foods and

game. Human use of fire reduced underbrush in some places

and contributed to prairie openings, which drew deer and

bison. Some researchers have suggested that Woodland and

Mississippian people even created orchards of fruit and nutbearing trees by clearing less productive trees to give the

more productive ones more room to grow (Gremillion 1993:

17-18, Smith 1992: 287). The product of 10,000 years of

human activity, this landscape was not an unpeopled

wilderness. The customs established over thousands of years

would continue to shape the environment over the next

several centuries. However, the arrival of Hernando de Soto

in 1540 introduced new agents of change, creating a new

environment for American Indians, Europeans, and Africans

in the Southern Appalachians.

Early History

Change came to the Southern Appalachians immediately on

the heels of De Soto’s visit. When Tristan de Luna revisited

the area between 1559 and 1561, he found the population of

Coosa in decline. The political power of Coosa was

weakened, and its influence had waned. Because of their

reduced strength, the people of Coosa enlisted the help of

De Luna’s soldiers in an attack on their former tributaries

near Chattanooga, TN. De Luna’s intervention may have

slowed the decline, but the changes at Coosa were the first

stages in the collapse of the paramount chiefdoms. Social

disruption caused by Spanish intrusions was one source of

change (Hudson and others 1989: 40–42). Another was the

introduction of new diseases from Africa and Europe.

Malaria, smallpox, cholera, and other diseases had a brutal

effect on American Indian populations. Without inherited

immunities, the Indians were “virgin ground” for infection,

and the death rate was extremely high (Crosby 1976). 

By 1600, American Indians were abandoning old towns and

migrating to new territories in response to the social

disruption and disease. Most Lamar people in the mountains

spoke Muskogean languages and were probably ancestors of

the Creek and Choctaw. By the late 17th century, the Cherokee

people had spread into northern Georgia and Alabama and

replaced the Lamar culture in that area. Cherokee towns of the

Appalachian Summit in North Carolina and Tennessee

persisted, but significant changes occurred (Smith 1989:

21–31). Qualla communities shifted toward the southwest,

possibly in response to the decline of Lamar chiefdoms.

Around the same time, population density declined in the

French Broad River Valley and other northeastern portions of

the Cherokee territory. In addition, the archaeological record

suggests that social and political systems decentralized;

palisaded towns overseeing a hierarchy of smaller settlements

gave way to loosely grouped households, sometimes scattered

along the rivers (Purrington 1983: 149–150).

European trade goods began to filter into the interior

southeast by the late 16th century. The Juan Pardo expeditions

between 1566 and 1568 established short-lived posts in

western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. In an attempt

to block French colonial expansion, Pardo gave trade goods

to high-ranking individuals in each town visited. In return, he

required them to build and stock storehouses for Spanish use.

Although these outposts were overrun within a year or two,

their construction brought significant numbers of iron tools

into the mountains for the first time. Interest in these items

ran high, and leaders traveled as far as 200 miles to see Pardo

and receive goods (Depratter and Smith 1980). 

Trade in deerskins and bison hides began in the 1560’s and,

by the 1630’s, had drawn a few residents of the eastern

Tennessee Valley to Spanish missions on the coast. Rather

than relocate, most groups sent trading parties or dealt with

middlemen. Others moved from previous homes to avoid

slave raids and warfare brought on by the new trade (Smith

1989: 30). European goods found in archaeological sites

from northern Alabama to southwestern Virginia predate

6
1700. Early trade goods included items that fit into

prehistoric trade patterns: brass and copper, iron tools,

textiles, and glass beads. Other items, particularly guns,

were new and added to both the social and environmental

change in the region (Waselkov 1989).

During the late 1600’s, hostilities between American

Indians and the Spanish allowed the newly arrived English

to enter the trade. In 1670, English colonists from Virginia

learned of a route through the mountains to rivers that

flowed west. Hoping to find a passage to the Pacific Ocean,

a party led by Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam left

Appomattox in September 1671. With Saponi Indian guides

from the Virginia piedmont, they traveled up the Roanoke

River and crossed the Blue Ridge at Adney Gap. From

there they crossed to the New River, then passed through

the southern part of present-day West Virginia along the

Guyandotte River. They ended their trip near the site of

Matewan, convinced they had seen tidal flow in the rivers

(Briceland 1991, Crane 1929: 14–15). 

Because crossing the Appalachians through present-day

West Virginia was difficult, Virginians explored a more

southerly route in 1674. With Tomahitan guides, one party

journeyed from modern-day Morganton, NC, to the site of

Asheville and then southwest to the Coosa River near

modern-day Rome, GA. A second group accompanied a

Tomahitan war party down the Warrior’s Path into Kentucky

and Tennessee. Traders soon used these paths to penetrate

the Southern Appalachians (Briceland 1991: 35). During

these same years, traders from newly founded Charleston in

South Carolina began competing for the trade of the

mountain peoples. Carolinian traders reached Cherokee

territory in 1690, though most of the trade between

Charleston and the Cherokee was conducted through

American Indian middlemen until the early 1700’s (Crane

1929: 40; Hatley 1993: 18, 32–37). Soon, French

expeditions along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers provided

the Charleston traders with new information about the

Southern Appalachians. Jean Couture, a coureur du bois, left

the service of La Salle and Tonti in the 1690’s and crossed

the mountains from the west by way of the Tennessee River.

In 1700, he led Englishmen back across the mountains to the

Mississippi, where they laid claim to the river like the

Spanish and French before them (Crane 1929: 42–44).

Although enormous social and cultural changes had taken

place at the southern edge of the Appalachians, the influence

of trade had even greater implications for the people of

Appalachian Virginia and eastern Kentucky. Most of the

people in present-day West Virginia and eastern Kentucky at

this time were probably Shawnee and Susquehannock.

European trade goods entered the area after 1650 through

the Iroquois who traded with Europeans in the Northeast.

Disease introduced by trading parties and warfare with the

powerful and well-armed Iroquois weakened the mountain

societies. The Iroquois then either absorbed the declining

communities or pushed them out of their territories to

expand the Iroquois hunting range (McMichael 1968:

53–55). The Batts and Fallam expedition of 1671 saw signs

of these displaced people. By Tug Fork above the Big

Sandy, abandoned fields were growing up in “weeds and

small prickly locusts and thistles to a very great height.” The

cultivators of these fields were still remembered by their

former neighbors, the Saponi and Tutelo (Briceland 1991:

34). Some of these people moved south into areas

depopulated by disease and warfare under Spanish influence

(Smith 1989). One Shawnee group, the Savannah, became

middlemen in the deerskin trade in Georgia (Crane 1929: 19).

In addition to social disruption and change, American

Indians also confronted environmental change. New plants

and animals entered the landscape, often traveling ahead of

the Europeans and Africans who brought them to North

America. Women, as the farmers of their societies,

governed the integration of crops and livestock into

traditional systems. The peach tree, an Asian native, was

the first of the new plants to be adopted. Peaches spread

like weeds from the Spanish missions along the gulf and

Atlantic coasts in the 16th century and settled easily into the

“orchards” of southeastern American Indians. Cowpeas

(black-eyed peas) from Africa were grown in central

Alabama as early as 1670 and soon spread to the Cherokee.

Like peaches, cowpeas fit easily into indigenous farming

systems and did not require new agricultural techniques

(Gremillion 1993). By the 1700’s, the Cherokee had added

watermelons and sweet potatoes to their diets. In contrast to

the new crops, new animals were more difficult to

assimilate. Even so, hogs and fowl were significant parts of

the Cherokee diet by the 1750’s. Acceptance of cattle came

more slowly because they damaged crops and were

perceived as the “deer of the white men.” These plant and

animal additions increased the productivity of Cherokee

agriculture and helped the Cherokee survive the wars and

upheaval of the 1700’s (Hatley 1991: 43–46, 1993: 161;

Timberlake 1948: 72).

Trade with settlers in Carolina and Virginia brought more

fundamental change to American Indian life than did

agricultural innovation. The primary trade item was

deerskin, leading to extreme pressure on white-tailed deer

populations throughout the Southeast. As the only

remaining indigenous society of any strength still residing

in the Southern Appalachians, the Cherokee possessed a

good hunting base. Yet, in the quest for deerskins, the

Cherokee expanded their hunting territories into the

southern Piedmont from southeastern Virginia to northern

Alabama and into depopulated regions of eastern

Tennessee and Kentucky. This expansion elevated tensions

between the Cherokee and their neighbors. Trade in

American Indian slaves was another source of tension;

wars were begun both as an excuse for taking slaves and in

retaliation for past slave raiding. As a result, intermittent

fighting occurred throughout the 1700’s, often encouraged

7
by the English (Crane 1929: 17–18, 263; Hatley 1993: 29,

67; Satz 1979: 14). 

In areas depopulated by war and disease, secondary forests

began to overtake open fields and prairies. However, places

maintained as hunting territory were kept open with fire

(Hatley 1993: 212). As the 18th century progressed, the

productive Cherokee lands drew increasing pressure from

white settlers. Game, much reduced in the lowlands, was still

abundant in the mountains. Those who came to hunt and trade

often stayed to raise livestock and build personal estates.

Soldiers involved in actions against the Cherokee in the mid1700’s and the American Revolution brought back tempting

descriptions of Cherokee lands. These reports renewed interest

in the forests, fields, and minerals of the mountains (Hatley

1991: 45–46; 1993: 42–43, 195; Timberlake 1948: 47, 68–73). 

Beginning in the late 1760’s, Cherokee territory was steadily

reduced through a series of cessions and takings (Finger

1984: 6–7; Hatley 1993: 205–222, 232). Mirroring the loss

of territory, the Cherokee population also dwindled under

increasing assaults and epidemics. In 1685, approximately

32,000 Cherokees lived in the Southern Appalachians. By

1790, fewer than 8,000 remained (Wood 1989: 38). Some

had moved to Arkansas; many others had died. The

remaining Cherokees attempted to insulate themselves from

further conflict. They moved their farmsteads to secluded

valleys and lived in a manner similar to European settlers. 

A smaller portion, often mixed-blood Cherokees, emulated

white planters and established large farms run with slave

labor. All were under increasing pressure to cede their

remaining land to white settlers, culminating with the

Cherokee removal in the 1830’s (Hatley 1993: 233).

European Settlement

Long before the removal of most Cherokee from their

homeland, settlers of European descent were arriving in the

Southern Appalachians. In Virginia, settlement was

concentrated in the Valley and Ridge province before 1750,

especially in the Shenandoah Valley (Rice 1970: 13).

Scarcity of good farmland in Pennsylvania led farmers south

into the northern Shenandoah Valley during the 1730’s.

Planters from the Virginia tidewater and Piedmont arrived

during the late 1760’s and early 1770’s. Most early arrivals

settled on limestone soils and practiced mixed farming based

on grains and livestock. New settlers and soldiers stationed

on the frontier provided early markets, but after 1760 wheat

exports to Atlantic ports became important. Tidewater

planters added tobacco, hemp, and slave labor to wheat

production, creating a hybrid system that ultimately spread

across the upper South (Hofstra 1991).

To the west of the Shenandoah Valley and in many parts of

the Southern Appalachians, the raising of open-range

livestock dominated the economy. Both the mast-producing

hardwoods and the lowland canebrakes provided abundant

forage for livestock. Furthermore, livestock were a valuable

commodity that could be sold on the frontier or driven to

eastern markets. As early as the 1740’s, drovers were

moving cattle north from the Carolinas to Philadelphia

through the Shenandoah Valley (MacMaster 1991: 130,

132). The south branch of the Potomac supplied frontier

garrisons with beef in the 1750’s. Horse-stealing and

trading by hunter-traders were common in the South

Carolina backcountry during the mid-1700’s. These men

probably raised livestock as well. As in Virginia, some

made their fortunes supplying military posts with livestock

and rose to positions of prominence. Revolutionary War

leader Andrew Williamson started his career as a cow

driver supplying Fort Prince George near Keowee in the

1750’s (Hatley 1993: 171, 181–183). Besides keeping

livestock, early settlers relied heavily on hunting for both

food and cash, competing with American Indians in the fur

and deerskin trade. A Moravian visitor to southwest Virginia

described them as people “who live like savages. Hunting is

their chief occupation” (quoted in Hatley 1993: 83).

Other early arrivals on the southern frontier were factions

of German Protestant sects from Pennsylvania. They

followed routes down the Shenandoah to the New River

and Watauga Valleys. At the close of the Seven Years’ War,

immigration into the western Carolinas and northern

Georgia increased dramatically. Southwestern Virginia

recovered from wartime losses, and its population began

growing steadily (Beeman 1985: 219; Cashin 1984: 231,

236; Greene 1984: 296; Mitchell 1977: 96). Like those who

had lived in the mountains before them, the earliest settlers

took up land in the fertile bottom lands. Attracted to these

already domesticated environments of canebrakes, fruit and

nut trees, plentiful game, and stone fishtraps in the rivers,

they nonetheless described the land as “virgin” (Hatley

1993: 86, Rice 1970: 66).

The first Europeans to spend significant periods in eastern

Kentucky were probably French traders. English traders

joined the French in the Ohio Valley by 1749. That same

year, agents of Virginia’s land speculators arrived through

the Cumberland Gap (McBride and McBride 1990:

584–585, Rice 1975: 10–11). These activities were

suspended by war but resumed immediately after the war

ended. Professional hunters (“long hunters”) were important

precursors to European settlement in eastern Kentucky and

Tennessee as they had been in the East. The long hunters

traveled on the ancient trail network across the Cumberland

Gap or down the Great Warrior Path. In the process, they

helped scout the land for future settlers, often their own

families. They were impressed by the abundance of game

and the open prairies, remnants of American Indian land

use practices (McBride and McBride 1990: 587, Rice 1975:

20–22). 

8
Appalachian Virginia settlements were largely destroyed

during the wars of the 1750’s and 60’s, but American Indian

land cessions after the wars led to a rush of settlers into

most of the major river valleys (Davis 1978: 56–66). Some

new settlers were former soldiers taking advantage of land

warrants awarded to them for their military service. Others

were land speculators. One prominent speculator, George

Washington, accumulated the rights of numerous veterans

and used them to acquire prime land on the Ohio and

Kanawha Rivers (fig. 4). On a surveying trip in 1770,

Washington was impressed by the timber in the region. He

described a mixed-hardwood forest of beech, walnut, and

oak, with sycamore trees up to 45 feet in circumference, near

the junction of the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers. In addition to

the Kanawha’s good timber, Washington appreciated

American Indian old fields and praised them as “excellent

meadows.” Washington sent workers to his Appalachian

lands where they erected buildings and planted 28 acres of

land with crops and peach trees. These improvements were

cut short by the American Revolution (Clendening 1931:

101, Rice 1970: 76–79, Williams 1989: 41). 

Washington was one of many Virginia speculators whose

efforts were interrupted by the Revolution. Increasing

hostilities during the 1770’s again interfered with European

expansion as American Indians allied themselves with the

British in a last effort to keep their homelands. In the long

run, however, the Revolution removed the restrictions of

British policy and American Indian resistance against

expansion into the Southern Appalachians. Thereafter, the

movement of people into and through the southern mountains

accelerated. Despite the war, two counties, Wilkes and Burke,

were created in North Carolina during 1777. In North

Carolina, as in Appalachian Virginia, the earliest settlers took

up large tracts of bottom land with access to trade routes.

French botanist Francois Michaux particularly noted “the

pasturage of these wild peas for the cattle” among the

attractions of the area (Inscoe 1989: 12–13, 26).

In Kentucky, the first Euro-American communities grew up

in the bluegrass region rather than in the mountains.

Immigration to the mountains began with the end of the

American Revolution (McBride and McBride 1990a: 592).

The first counties in the mountains of Kentucky, Knox and

Floyd, were established around 1800. In eastern Tennessee,

establishment of Euro-American control took longer. The

continued strength of the Cherokee, particularly the

determined resistance of the Chickamauga branch led by

Dragging Canoe, continued to slow the advance of EuroAmericans into the upper Tennessee River drainage until

the 1790’s (Govan and Livingood 1977: 37–50). 

Early 19th Century

After the Chickamauga’s defeat, roads were quickly

constructed from Augusta, GA, into eastern Tennessee

(Govan and Livingood 1977: 53–54). By the early 19th

century, the United States had asserted its control over the

entire Southern Appalachian region. While still thinly

populated, the area was connected to national markets with

toll roads following the old trails. The new inhabitants took

over the trade in deerskins, furs, chestnuts, and ginseng

from displaced American Indians. Agricultural practices in

many areas also resembled American Indian customs.

Farmers cleared land by girdling trees and burning smaller

vegetation, which yielded ash fertilizer (fig. 5). They

cleared new fields as yields declined, allowing secondary

forests to reclaim old fields for 20 years or more. After a

long fallow period, the old fields were recleared. As with

American Indian agriculture, these enlarged forest edge

habitats increased populations of game animals and wild

fruit. Forest fallowing survived where population densities

were low until the early 20th century (Otto 1987). In large

valleys, where population was concentrated and commercial

agriculture demanded more from the land, farmers adopted

intensive land use methods much earlier. In Virginia, a few

were using clover, plaster, and lime to maintain fertility

before the Civil War (Gray 1958: 881).

Colonial patterns of livestock-keeping continued in the 19th

century. In a practice common all over the colonial

Southeast, mountaineers turned their animals onto an open

range of forests and old fields while fencing protected their

crops from damage (Otto 1987). Several methods kept

livestock from straying too far. Salt licks and periodic

feedings encouraged animals to remain in the vicinity of the

farmstead. Some mountain farmers built their farmsteads at

the mouths of coves or small valleys, using the topography

as fencing (Rice 1970: 15). In the highlands, transhumance

was a common feature of livestock-keeping. Animals stayed

in pastures close to home during the winter and were driven

to pastures higher in the mountains in the summer. Bald

mountains were favored summer pastures and were

sometimes created through clearing and burning. In the

Great Smokies, Cades Cove residents used mountain balds

as pastures from the 1830’s until their eviction from the

national park in 1937. White Top Mountain near Mount

Rogers, VA, was grazed from 1828 until the 1950’s

(Blethen and Wood 1991: 162; Dunn 1988: 32–34; Pyle and

Schafale 1988: 4, 9, 16). 

To reach markets, Kentuckians drove their livestock

through the Cumberland Gap to east Tennessee. From there,

the animals of both regions went on to Georgia and the

Carolinas. One of the most important routes for livestock

over the mountains was the French Broad River Valley. As

many as 150,000 hogs came over from Tennessee in one

season. Another important route ran through the Big Sandy

and Ohio Rivers to northeastern markets, whereas the

Knoxville area supplied northern Alabama and western

Georgia. Districts such as the valley of Virginia and east

Tennessee specialized in fattening livestock from more

remote areas for market. Hogs, cattle, and mules were the

9
10

Figure 4—Virgin white pine-hardwood stand in George Washington National Forest, Rockingham County, Virginia.
most common livestock driven, but even fowl were moved

to market in this manner (Lewis 1988: 840–841, 881–885;

Sondley 1930: 617–621). 

Besides contributing animals, farmers in these regions

supplied corn and fodder to the migrating herds. Stock stands

provided shelter for both people and animals and provided a

place where drovers could obtain information on road and

market conditions. Professional drovers worked side by side

with farmers who made the trip on their own account. By the

1830’s, these mountain valleys became summer destinations

for wealthy visitors escaping the heat. Some roadside stands

became hotels to accommodate these early tourists. Warm

Springs on the French Broad River hosted summer guests

who hunted and visited the mineral springs. In the winter, the

hotel continued to depend on the livestock drives for business

(Blethen and Wood 1991: 161–164). Mineral springs in

Kentucky and Appalachian Virginia developed as resort areas

during the same period (McBride and McBride 1990: 605,

Rice 1972: 329–331). Mount Mitchell was another tourist

destination. In the years before the Civil War, hiking trails,

mountain cabins, and curiosity about the highest peak in the

East drew visitors from as far away as Charleston, SC

(Schwarzkopf 1985: 35–48).

Although livestock was important to the economy, grains,

dairy products, potatoes, wool, orchard products, and honey

were also significant commercial products of Southern

Appalachian agriculture. In addition, flax and tobacco were

produced for local consumption (Hall 1991: 166–169,

Inscoe 1989: 13–24). Most small-scale industries of the era

were associated with the agricultural production of the

region. In Appalachian Virginia, the introduction of Merino

sheep in 1806 led to the establishment of carding mills.

Wellsburg, WV, also had a woolen factory, a rug factory,

and, by 1830, a cotton factory employing 60 people (Rice

1970: 322). Gristmills and distilleries transformed grain into

flour or whiskey and fruit into brandy. The goods produced

11

Figure 5—Trees killed by girdling to clear for a farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
were more valuable, less bulky and perishable, and easier to

transport to markets (Davidson 1946: 211, Gray 1958:

884–885, Kegley 1979: 31, Rice 1970: 323). In some places

distilling became a major occupation; in 1810, 106

distilleries made over 20,000 gallons of spirits in Burke

County, North Carolina (Inscoe 1989: 48–49). In contrast,

until the mid-19th century more remote settlements such as

Cades Cove relied on small tub mills owned and run by

individual farmers (Dunn 1988: 80–81).

Like textiles and tobacco, early lumbering in the mountains

was primarily for local consumption; only 40 waterpowered sawmills operated in what is now West Virginia by

1835. Beginning in the 1830’s, landowners along rivers

floated lumber to markets on the Ohio and Mississippi

Rivers. Logs were transported as rafts or flatboats that

carried settlers and cargoes of barrel staves, salt, flour,

whiskey, and cotton (fig. 6). From northern Alabama to the

Cheat and Tygart Rivers, huge poplars became boats 20 feet

wide and 75 to 120 feet long. One source estimated over

100 of these boats were used on the Little and Big Coal

Rivers from 1836 until after the Civil War. On the Kanawha

River, saltworks used more than 300 flatboats in 1829, and

their needs continued to rise until 1846. In addition, rafts of

poplar and walnut were occasionally sold (Clendening

1931: 102; Davidson 1946: vol 1, 212–15; Davis 1978:

77–78; Gray 1958: 869; Rice 1970: 318). Rafts and

flatboats from the Southern Appalachians were a part of the

timber trade down the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers, which

started in 1805, peaked between 1832 and 1840, and

virtually ended by 1870 (Williams 1989: 186).

Like lumbering and tourism, industry and mining in the

Southern Appalachians also began in the early 19th century.

The production of salt and saltpeter was important for both

local markets and export. Appalachian Virginia and eastern

Kentucky were the major sources of these commodities

(Gray 1958: 869–871, 885; Kegley 1979: 102; Rice 1970:

310–313). Salt was crucial for food preservation, especially

meats. Meat processing in Kentucky and Knoxville, TN,

relied on salt from these sources (Moore 1991: 229–230).

Saltpeter, or potassium nitrate, is a major ingredient in

12

Figure 6—Log rafts in eastern Kentucky.
gunpowder and some fertilizers. At the close of the

Revolution, Thomas Jefferson recorded over 50 saltpeter

caves operating along the Greenbrier River alone (Jefferson

1787: 34). In Kentucky, the two largest sources of saltpeter

were Mammoth Cave and the Appalachian Mountains. The

saltpeter industry was particularly vigorous during the

Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War, when the

demand for gunpowder was high (Davis 1978: 75; McBride

and McBride 1990: 596, 610). 

Small charcoal-fired iron furnaces were another locally

important industry. One of the earliest furnaces operated in the

1740’s near Harper’s Ferry, and others followed, making

Wheeling an important iron center (Rice 1972: 123). Iron

making began in Kentucky in 1791 on what is now the Daniel

Boone National Forest. Before midcentury, ironworks were

scattered throughout the Southern Appalachians, especially

eastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia, northern Alabama,

and northern Georgia. The demands made by charcoal-fired

furnaces on the forests often led to abandonment of

ironworks due to insufficient fuel. Furnaces were sometimes

reopened after forests in the vicinity recovered. Clearcutting

in these locales increased the extent of even-aged secondary

forests. A postwar furnace in Anniston, AL, that produced

6,100 tons annually needed 20,000 acres of timberland for a

permanent fuel supply (Collins 1975: 146–150; Inscoe 1989:

70; Kegley 1979: 124–127; Moore 1991: 230–231; Williams

1989: 149–151, 340–342). 

Competition with wood, an abundant and cheap fuel,

limited coal mining before the Civil War. The salt and iron

industries consumed most of the coal produced in the

mountains of Kentucky and present-day West Virginia. Coal

from along the Cumberland River was exported to the

foundries in Nashville, averaging 2,100 tons annually

between 1829 and 1834. By 1860, 50,000 tons were dug in

this region. Smaller amounts came by raft down the Big

Sandy. In 1840, 304,000 tons were mined in the Kanawha

and upper Ohio River valleys (Moore 1991: 231–232; Rice

1970: 311, 315–317). In 1848, a scarce type of coal very

rich in coal oil was found on tributaries of the Kanawha.

Cannel coal was used for lighting either in unprocessed form

or as coal oil. Between 1848 and 1861, approximately 1,500

gallons of oil were produced per day (Rice 1972: 124).

Copper, gold, lead, and zinc were also mined in the Southern

Appalachians. Copper mining dated to prehistoric times and

continued to be important in southwestern Virginia, eastern

Tennessee, and the western Carolinas. Smelters began

producing copper in Grayson County, Virginia, in 1832. One

operation yielded 3 to 5 tons of copper daily in the late

1850’s (Kegley 1979: 141–146). In the same decade,

Cherokee workers built the Old Copper Road along the

North Carolina-Tennessee border to transport copper to the

railhead in Cleveland, TN (Dyer and Bass 1994: 24). By the

1850’s, the owners and prospectors of copper mines were

demanding rail lines through the mountains to improve

transportation. Gold, silver, lead, iron, marble, slate, quartz,

and porcelain clay also attracted speculative attention. In

addition to opening pits in the ground, mining operations

increased the demand for lumber, and smelters severely

damaged vegetation and waters in their vicinity with acidic

fumes (Inscoe 1989: 164, 170–171).

Gold mining erupted in northern Georgia in the 1820’s after

gold was discovered near Dahlonega south of present-day

Chattahoochee National Forest (Davidson 1946: 265). In

1836, a United States mint opened in northern Georgia. It

eventually coined over $6 million, part of the $17 million of

gold mined during the rush. In the space of 20 years, town

populations grew by the thousands, then shrank back to

crossroads when miners moved on to California in 1849

(Elliot 1939: 252). In 1828, a similar gold rush began in

Burke and Rutherford Counties, North Carolina, which lasted

5 years. Many of these miners also moved on to California.

While mining in northern Georgia virtually ended with the

California gold rush, it continued through the 1850’s in North

and South Carolina. A mine in Ashe County, North Carolina,

operated as late as 1925. Gold mining could be very

profitable. The most productive mine in North Carolina

operated at a profit with a capital investment of $35,000

(Inscoe 1989: 66, 70–71). In 1843, Edmund Ruffin described

a South Carolina mine that produced about $2,400 worth of

gold per month (Ruffin 1992: 285–286). 

The gold rush increased pressure for Cherokee removal to

Oklahoma. Anti-Cherokee sentiment had been growing

during the 1820’s as settlers from Georgia and the Carolinas

pushed for access to Cherokee lands. In 1829, the Georgia

State Legislature laid claim to most Cherokee territory,

voiding Federal laws and regulations to the contrary. In spite

of a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Cherokee in 1832,

President Andrew Jackson refused to protect Cherokee

rights and property. Harassment and illegal seizures of land

led some Cherokee leaders to accept the Treaty of New

Echota in 1835. The treaty exchanged land in present-day

Oklahoma for Cherokee territory in the Southern

Appalachians. Few Cherokee accepted the trade. As a result,

most were forcibly removed by armed troops in 1838. More

than 4,000 died on the march west, now known as the Trail

of Tears. A small number of Cherokee escaped removal by

hiding in the high mountains of western North Carolina. The

descendants of these holdouts later became the Eastern Band

of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina (Finger 1984). 

Although the Southern Appalachians are frequently seen as

isolated, the isolation of the region was relative during these

years. With wagon roads and river travel the norm

everywhere, the Southern Appalachians were only slightly

less accessible than other parts of the country. As new types

of transportation emerged, however, the mountains became

less accessible compared to the lowlands. Steamboat service

established on the upper Tennessee, the Kanawha, Licking,

and Big Sandy Rivers was limited by the difficulty of

13
navigation on mountain streams. Residents of the highlands

pushed for railroads, but few rail lines were laid before the

Civil War except for local lines. However, the valley of

Virginia, northern Alabama, and Knoxville, TN, acquired rail

connections to coastal ports in the 1850’s (Davidson 1946:

237–250; Gray 1958: 882–883, 894, 904, 916; McBride and

McBride 1990: 599, 601; Rice 1970: 333; 1972: 217–218).

The economy of the Southern Appalachians between the

American Revolution and the Civil War was complex and

diverse. It ranged from nomadic activities, such as hunting

and livestock droving, to small subsistence farms, large

commercial farms, and industry. The social system that

evolved with this economy was equally complicated. The

stereotype of the mountaineer is a rough individualist, selfsufficient, and isolated from outside society (fig. 7). Many

people in the Southern Appalachians fit this description and

continued to fit it until the 20th century. Many others,

however, were connected and involved with economic,

social, and political affairs on regional and national levels. 

Along with business enterprises and commercial agriculture

came slavery. Although most mountaineers did not own

slaves, a significant number of African Americans, mostly

enslaved, lived in the mountains. Slavery was present to

some extent in all parts of the Southern Appalachians. The

Cherokee used slave labor on plantations they established in

the early 19th century, and many Cherokee took their slaves

to Oklahoma during removal in the 1830’s (Perdue 1984:

27). In 1854, 11,000 slaves lived in east Tennessee,

compared to 62,000 in middle Tennessee, and 44,000 in

west Tennessee (Davidson 1946: 298). Slavery was notable

in the Shenandoah Valley from the 1750’s as eastern

Virginians established plantations. In western North Carolina

counties, slave populations ranged from 2.1 to 26.3 percent

of the population in 1860. African Americans worked on

farms and as drovers, but they were particularly important in

nonagricultural enterprises, including mines, factories, and

hotels (Inscoe 1989: 62–72). African Americans have been

an integral part of Southern Appalachian history since the

Spanish expeditions of the 16th century.

European settlement of the Southern Appalachians and the

developments of the early 19th century brought

immeasurable change to the environment and landscape. By

the mid-18th century, market hunting had driven the last of

the elk, bison, and bear into the mountains. Wolves,

panthers, otter, muskrat, and mink were similarly restricted

(Silver 1990: 100, 186). The last bison were killed before

1800 and the last elk by the 1850’s (Lewis 1988: 21).

Bounties placed on predators helped drive wolves and

cougars toward extinction, whereas trapping greatly reduced

the populations of fur-yielding animals. Hunting and

competition for mast and forage from livestock put pressure

on bear and deer populations. Overgrazing by livestock

reduced the extent of canebrakes in the valleys, probably

contributing to the decline of elk, bison, and deer. New

plant species, escaped from gardens or spread by livestock,

vied with native grasses and wildflowers for habitat.

Logging around salt works, mines, and major rivers reduced

forest cover in their proximity and increased the extent of

secondary forests. In spite of all the changes, the Southern

Appalachians still harbored large numbers of wild animals

and uncut forests. Environmental modifications up to the

Civil War were only a shadow of what was yet to come.

Civil War and Its Aftermath 

The Civil War was a divisive period in American history,

and nowhere was this more true than in the Southern

Appalachians. While secession divided the South from the

rest of the United States, it separated the Southern

Appalachians from the rest of the South. It split mountain

society into factions and broke mountain communities into

opposing bands of armed guerrillas. Family members and

neighbors became enemies. Even areas that escaped major

battles were devastated; only a few lucky places avoided

both the formal war and the internecine fighting.

Political divisions between the mountains and other southern

regions existed throughout the antebellum period. In Virginia

and North Carolina, political differences revolved around the

western need for roads and railroads, which easterners either

failed to support financially or opposed outright (Inscoe 1989:

152–176, Noe 1992: 305). Eastern Tennessee, at a political

disadvantage to its more populous western portions, was

connected economically to southeastern Virginia and the lower

South (Bryan 1978: 12–13). Northern Alabama also differed

from the remainder of the State in economy and politics

(Thomas 1979: 50). The majority of Southern Appalachia

shared Jacksonian Democratic politics that promoted equal

representation and universal suffrage for white men. 

Prounion feeling was highest in the northwestern section of

Virginia. Unionists separated from Virginia in 1861, first as

the State of Kanawha and, then, as West Virginia when

Federal troops established control from the Kanawha River

to Cheat Mountain and the Greenbrier Valley (Ambler

1988: 13–14, Stutler 1988: 35). Southwestern Virginia,

linked by rail to the East, stayed with the Old Dominion.

After Lincoln’s election, the southwest took a wait-and-see

attitude of “conditional unionism” or “conservative

secessionism.” After Fort Sumter, the district supported

secession, but this support eroded quickly during the war.

Depopulated and ruined by war and guerilla fighting, the

counties bordering West Virginia became a part of that State

in 1862. The remaining counties suffered increasingly

severe shortages from military impressment, tax-in-kind,

and disruption from war and conscription. Class tensions

grew as the war came to be seen as “a rich man’s war and a

poor man’s fight” (Noe 1992: 312–315). 

14
15

Figure 7—Moonshiner in Pisgah Forest.
The experience of western North Carolina and northern

Alabama closely mirrored that of southwestern Virginia.

Political positions before the beginning of the war were not

clear cut, but secession gained the upper hand once war

seemed imminent (Thomas 1979: 50). In contrast, eastern

Tennessee remained primarily unionist throughout the

period and held two antisecessionist conventions after

Tennessee left the Union. Only the southernmost counties

of eastern Tennessee and a lone standout on its northern

border, Sullivan County, supported secession (Bryan 1978:

23, 34–64). Kentucky began the war as a neutral State but

was soon split into northern Union and southern

Confederate halves. Its Appalachian regions experienced

the war on much the same terms as the rest of the Southern

Appalachians, with divided loyalties and internecine

warfare (McBride and McBride 1990: 606–611). 

Political divisions in the Southern Appalachians were

strongly related to economic divisions. Counties in western

North Carolina with strong business ties to South Carolina

were primarily secessionist. The Cherokee remaining in

North Carolina joined the Confederacy, probably influenced

by their agent William Thomas who was a secessionist

(Finger 1984: 82–100). The northwestern counties and

those bordering Tennessee leaned toward unionism.

Southeastern Tennessee and northern Alabama were

oriented toward the slave-holding gulf region and supported

secession (Inscoe 1989: 227, 247; Thomas 1979: 50). The

split between unionists and secessionists was also perceived

as a class division where slaveholders opposed subsistence

farmers (Bryan 1978: 23–33, Inscoe 1989). 

As the war progressed, politics became increasingly

tangled. Those who were initially neutral shifted into one

camp or another, depending on whether they had suffered

most at the hands of the unionists or the secessionists.

Others, weary and disillusioned, became neutral. By the end

of the war, personal reasons of revenge or survival

motivated most people in the mountains. Guerilla warfare,

murder, and conscription by the Confederate army had

decimated the population. Women, children, and the elderly

suffered attacks, torture, and starvation. Theft, impressment,

and disruption of agriculture and trade had caused

widespread deprivation. Livestock were stolen by raiding

parties and impressed by controlling armies with little or no

compensation. In Cades Cove, the number of horses per

farm was reduced from 6.1 in 1860 to 1.3 in 1880 (Dunn

1988: 76). Hog and corn production dropped by one-half in

the Valley and Ridge province from Virginia to Chattanooga

and by one-third in the Plateau region (Salstrom 1991: 273).

Roads were not maintained and bridges were destroyed

(Bryan 1978: 344–347, McKinney 1992). In eastern

Tennessee and West Virginia, repeated military campaigns

focused on railroads, rivers, and industrial developments,

but most areas were equally hard hit (Bryan 1978, Stutler

1988: 35–38).

Civil War destruction contributed to widening divisions

between the “upper” and “lower” classes (Salstrom 1991:

279). In Cades Cove, now part of the Great Smoky

Mountains National Park, farm size dropped from an

average of 83.98 acres in 1850 to 30.84 in 1880 despite a

drop in population from 671 to 449 during the same

period (Dunn 1988: 69). Because subsistence farmers held

most of their wealth in livestock, the war affected them

more than those with most of their capital in land. The war

also disrupted the livestock industry in the mountains.

Markets for Appalachian animals shrank with the end of

the plantation system, and new sources of western beef

bypassed the Appalachians. Adding to the economic

troubles of western North Carolina, the tourist industry

collapsed until the railroad to Asheville was completed in

1880 (Schwarzkopf 1985: 80–81). Many of the economic

problems facing the Southern Appalachians were part of

the economic depression affecting the entire South after

the war. 

Environmental changes accompanied the social and

economic upheaval of the times. Mountaineers were forced

to rely more heavily on game animals for food when their

livestock were taken and their cropping disrupted (Dunn

1988: 131–133). The absence and loss of men during the

war created labor shortages on farms. Women and children

continued plowing and planting, but they lacked the work

force to clear new fields when the old were exhausted. The

resulting drop in yields exacerbated crop shortages and may

have increased problems with erosion (McKinney 1992: 45,

55). Some regrowth of forest may have occurred as farms

were abandoned and populations dropped, but military

demands on the forest for game, timber, and new roads

probably canceled out any gains. Additional demands were

made on the forests when many of the cabins and

outbuildings burned in raids were rebuilt. 

At the end of the Civil War, the mountain people were

left embittered. Long-term animosities gave rise to feuds

that lasted for years (Bryan 1978: 347, Collins 1975:

168–172, McBride and McBride 1990: 611). These feuds

contributed to the image of Southern Appalachia as a

retarded frontier (fig. 8). Union sympathies in the

mountains also fed stereotypes of the Southern

Appalachian residents as throwbacks to the patriotic

highlanders who defeated the British at Kings Mountain,

NC, during the American Revolution. More and more, the

rest of the country viewed the Southern Appalachians as a

distinct region, separated from the rest of the country by

rough terrain and strange, backward customs. This view

justified missionary and reform movements focused on

the southern mountains and its people (Shapiro 1978:

87–93, 105). The “hillbilly” stereotype also was used to

justify the widespread expropriation of mountain

resources during the late 19th and early 20th centuries

(Eller 1982: 43). 

16
Late 19th Century

Although farming in the Southern Appalachians recovered

somewhat after the Civil War, the pattern of decline begun

during the war would never be completely reversed. In spite

of this deterioration, agriculture remained the principal

source of livelihood in the mountains until after 1880.

Traditional patterns of subsistence farming continued,

supplemented by the barter and sale of corn, livestock, and

forest products such as ginseng. Agricultural methods also

remained stable, including open- range livestock keeping

and intercropping corn with a variety of vegetables. Swine

were still the chief export; farmers in the Southern

Appalachians sold nearly 11⁄4 million hogs in 1880 (Eller

1982: 15–22). 

The remaining Cherokee of the Southeast persisted

alongside European and African-American newcomers. In

addition to working their farms, the Cherokee kept up the

fight for their lands in the Southern Appalachians. On July

19, 1868, the U.S. Congress recognized the Eastern Band of

Cherokee Indians of North Carolina as a distinct tribe. The

Qualla boundary was established in the 1870’s, but the

Cherokee did not receive a clear title until 1894. In 1884,

after losses from war, disease, and ongoing emigration to

Oklahoma, approximately 2,956 Cherokee lived in North

Carolina, northern Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and northern

Alabama (Finger 1984: 110–122, 105, 143, 171–172).

Continuity in mountain life masked the roots of deep and

abiding change. Beginning in the 1870’s, boosters of the New

South promoted mountain resources to outside investors.

Private speculators, who had become familiar with the area

during military service or tourist trips, made exploratory

visits to locate resources. Land speculation during the 1870’s

and 80’s involved almost the entire range of the Southern

Appalachians. Coal, timber, and iron attracted the most

interest, but the economic depression of the 1870’s slowed

development (Eller 1982). During the 1880’s, the tourist

industry destroyed by war began to rebuild. The population

17

Figure 8—Typical mountaineer’s cabin near Junaluska Mountain.
of Asheville, NC, grew from 2,600 to about 10,000 between

1880 and 1890. Similar growth as a result of tourism also

occurred in other parts of the mountains. A renewed surge of

wealthy visitors to the Southern Appalachians exposed even

more potential investors to opportunities in the mountains

(Eller 1982: 42–43, 101–103; Mastran and Lowerre 1983:

xxiii; Schwarzkopf 1985: 81).

West Virginia and eastern Kentucky felt the impact of

industrial development first. The Chesapeake and Ohio

Railroad crossed West Virginia to Huntington in 1873

creating a boom for towns, sawmills, and coal mines. Coal

mining expanded from concentration on cannel coal to

include other types, particularly bituminous coal. The New

River and Kanawha coal fields opened first. The Norfolk

and Western Railroad soon followed, reaching the

Smokeless coal fields of the Pocahontas Mines in 1883

(Tams 1963: 17–19). Most of the other major railroads in the

Southern Appalachians were completed by 1900; however,

railroad building remained important in the mountains well

into the 20th century (Eller 1982: 65, McBride and McBride

1990: 630–631, Rice 1972: 223). Another important

development in West Virginia’s transportation network was

the completion of a series of locks on the Ohio and

Kanawha Rivers in the 1880’s. Steamboats pushing coal

barges and luxury boats carrying tourists made up most of

the traffic through the locks. The steady growth of the

transportation infrastructure led to a steady increase in coal

production: 600,000 tons in 1870, 1,600,000 in 1880,

6,300,000 in 1890, and 21,500,000 tons by 1900. First

tapped in the 1850’s, West Virginia’s oil and natural gas

wells also grew in importance after the Civil War. Almost

300 were in operation by 1876 (Rice 1972: 225, 231, 246). 

Coal mining in southwestern Virginia and eastern Tennessee

remained small scale until after 1900, when it increased

sharply (Eller 1982: 149). Southeastern Tennessee and

northern Alabama expanded in importance as centers of

iron production in the post bellum years. From its founding

in 1871, Birmingham, AL, competed with Chattanooga,

TN, for primacy in the iron and steel industry. By the

1880’s, Birmingham was dominant because iron and coal

were abundant in northern Alabama (Govan and Livingood

1977: 54–56). Charcoal-fired iron furnaces remained

important in northern Alabama and northwestern Georgia

through the early 20th century despite the introduction of

coke-fired furnaces. New railroads opened access to new

supplies of wood for fuel. The charcoal iron industry finally

died out from a lack of iron ore and from competition with

other centers of production rather than from a lack of wood

(Williams 1989: 339–342). Mineral exploration led to

mining after the Civil War in western North Carolina as it

had in other areas of the Southern Appalachians. Coal was

not plentiful in the Appalachian Summit of western North

Carolina and iron was either inaccessible or low grade, but

a variety of other minerals drew developers. The highquality mica of the Black Mountains was the most heavily

exploited. Other minerals included semiprecious stones,

feldspar, kaolin, quartz, phosphate rock, and fluorite. The

environmental impact of this mining was restricted to a few

areas and was minimal compared to that of iron and coal

mining (Schwarzkopf 1985: 82).

Like mining, lumbering followed the railroads. Shortages of

lumber in the Northeast and Lake States by 1880 made the

forests of the Southern Appalachians increasingly attractive.

But no lumbering operation could be financially successful

without rail or water connections. Charleston, WV, was the

center of sawmilling in the State during the 1880’s because

of its access to both water transportation and railroads

through eastern Kentucky and Tennessee to Cincinnati, OH.

Several timber firms with operations in West Virginia,

Kentucky, and Tennessee headquartered in the city

(Clendening 1931: 103–104). The ever- widening network

of rails also opened northern Alabama, northern Georgia,

and western North Carolina in the late 1880’s (Eller 1982:

99–100, Govan and Livingood 1977: 292–293, Pikl 1966: 9). 

Speculators traveled with or in advance of the railroads.

They purchased ridge land, timber rights, and mineral rights

from farmers who rarely knew the true value of their

property or the impact that mining and lumbering would

have on their land. Between 1880 and 1900, investors from

outside the region obtained most of the mineral and timber

rights along the railroads. With the sale of these rights, many

mountain farmers lost their agricultural livelihoods because

clearcutting and mining reduced or destroyed the land’s

agricultural productivity. As a result, many mountaineers

became dependent on wage labor in the mines and sawmills

(fig. 9) (Eller 1982, Gaventa 1980: 53–55, McBride and

McBride 1990a: 637). By the early 20th century, the

decreasing amount of land available for farms and a growing

population led to increased tenancy and decreased farm size.

These changes would eventually end farming in the forests

of the Southern Appalachians (Otto 1983). 

The first phases of lumbering and mining did not disrupt

the established economy. Employment was seasonal or

temporary and supplemented rather than replaced farming

incomes. Large-scale mining was restricted to a few

regions, and lumber was cut selectively along rivers and the

main lines of the new railroads. Therefore, environmental

disruption was limited to the vicinity of a few mines and

did not affect most farmers. Pervasive change occurred after

1890 as the infrastructure of railroads matured. The spread

of big mining and lumber concerns was retarded by a

financial panic in 1893, but companies founded during

these years laid the foundation for an explosion of activity

after 1900 (Eller 1982, Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 2–3).

The expansion of resource extraction in the Southern

Appalachians increased concern for conservation of the

18
land and its resources. Although this concern began in the

colonial period, the opening of western lands for American

expansion delayed widespread concern until the second half

of the 19th century. Man and Nature by George Perkins

Marsh was the first influential publication cautioning

against environmental waste. Published in 1864, Marsh’s

book both inspired and influenced government officials in

their attempts to regulate resource use across the Nation.

Motivated by decreasing lumber supplies in many areas and

flooding in deforested watersheds, concerned individuals

led by Franklin B. Hough organized the American Forestry

Association (AFA) in 1875. Secretary of the Interior Carl

Schurz joined Hough and the AFA in warnings about timber

depletion. The work of Hough and his supporters led to the

establishment of the Division of Forestry under the

Department of Agriculture in 1881 (Steen 1976: 8–17).

Although forestry bills had been introduced in Congress

since the 1860’s, the first bill did not pass until 1891. This

bill allowed the President to proclaim forest reserves on

public domain. Because public land was scarce in the East,

the President could not establish forest reserves in the

Southern Appalachians until the Weeks Law of 1911, which

authorized purchase of lands (Steen 1976: 26–27, 122). 

Inspired by the tourist industry, early proposals for parks and

reserves in the Southern Appalachians began in the 1880’s.

On October 29, 1885, Henry O. Marcy, M.D., of Boston

read a paper before the American Medical Association

advocating a national park in the higher ranges of North

Carolina for the benefit of invalids (Marcy 1885 quoted in

Smith 1960: 38). The growth of the conservation movement

paralleled developments in industry during the 1890’s.

Lumbering around tourist areas was drawing comment. In

1892, Charles S. Sargent responded by publishing a plan for

a Southern Appalachian forest reserve in Garden and Forest

(Sargent 1892). Also in the early 1890’s, George Vanderbilt

hired a young forester named Gifford Pinchot to manage his

estate (Biltmore) near Asheville, NC. Joseph A. Holmes,

State Geologist of North Carolina, suggested to Pinchot a

reserve in the North Carolina mountains. In the same

19

Figure 9—Sawmill in George Washington National Forest, 1939.
decade, the North Carolina legislature and the North

Carolina Press Association came out in favor of an

Appalachian park (Smith 1960: 39–40). In 1898, Gifford

Pinchot became the head of the Division of Forestry,

bringing a concern for the forests of the Southern

Appalachians into the Federal Government. Pinchot was

replaced at Biltmore Estate by Carl A. Schenck, a German

forester (fig. 10). Schenck founded a forestry school on the

estate in an area that would become the nucleus for Pisgah

National Forest. The Biltmore Forest School produced many

State, Federal, and industrial foresters who helped shape

American forestry in the 20th century (Jolley 1970: 10–11).

Finally, in the closing months of the 19th century, the

Appalachian National Park Association was inaugurated to

work for a national park in the mountains of the Carolinas,

Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Virginia (Campbell 1960:

15, Smith 1960: 45–47).

By the end of the 19th century, profound change had

occurred in the Southern Appalachian landscape (figs. 11a

and 11b). The United States had consolidated its control of

the region, leading to the acceleration of settlement and

resource use from the ancient centers of human activity in

the valleys to all but the most inaccessible mountain slopes.

Subsistence agriculture and the free-range livestock

industry, prominent during the first half of the century, were

in retreat. Losses during the Civil War, increasing

populations, and pressure from mining and lumbering

interests restricted previous patterns of land use. Extinction

and restriction of wildlife ranges coupled with the

introduction of exotic plants and livestock caused

widespread change in native ecosystems just as increased

tourism brought the area to national attention. As a result,

deforestation from lumbering, railroads, mining, and

smelting drew concern from the fledgling conservation

movement in the late 1800’s. Most of the issues raised by

19th-century resource use remain. The developments of

19th-century industry and conservation would become

familiar patterns in the 20th century.

Early 20th Century

New economic prosperity after the turn of the century

accelerated the exploitation of Southern Appalachian forest

and mineral wealth. The trend toward large holdings in the

hands of outside interests continued, sometimes combining

mining and lumbering interests in one company (Eller

1982: 93–102). A 1908 Government report on the Southern

Appalachians estimated that 50 percent of its timberlands

were owned by large companies (Wilson 1908: 36). Even

after the activity of the late 19th century, large reserves

remained nearly untouched. A 1901 report by W.W. Ashe

and H.B. Ayers estimated that 75 percent of the Southern

Appalachians was still forested and 10 percent was still in

virgin growth (Ashe and Ayers 1901: 45, Mastran and

Lowerre 1983: 8). From 1900 until the 1920’s, this forest

cover would be substantially reduced by heavy cutting.

Sawmills served by narrow-gauge, logging railroads spread

throughout the southern mountains, even to the spruce

forests of the highest elevations (fig. 12). Overhead cables

and yarding machines accelerated tree removal in the rough

terrain, and new bandsaws accelerated milling.

Mechanization increased soil leaching, erosion, flooding,

and fire frequency (Lambert 1961: 357–359). In 1908, the

Secretary of State’s report estimated that 86 percent of the

acreage in the Southern Appalachians was cleared, in

various stages of regrowth, or in young secondary forests.

According to the report “practically all of it, whether cut or

not” had been burned (Wilson 1908: 24). 

Logging began in the spruce forests of the Great Smoky

Mountains and the Mount Rogers area in 1905 and on

Mount Mitchell in 1912. Between 50,000 to 100,000 board

feet per acre were taken from the vicinity of Mount Rogers.

Spruce-fir stands in western North Carolina held less timber

at 10,000 to 50,000 board feet per acre. Clearing at higher

elevations increased the frequency of windthrow, causing

even greater impact on the spruce forests. Most of Mount

Mitchell was cut over, and much of it was burned. Although

logging did not end until 1922, Mount Mitchell was

designated a State park in 1915. It gradually reforested in

spite of continued windthrows and fires (Pyle and Schafale

1988, Schwarzkopf 1985: 82–92). 

Hardwoods were cut in the lower elevations: poplar, walnut,

cherry, oak, and ash. Chestnut was valued for lumber and

tannin. As cutting progressed, smaller trees were cut down

to 15 inches in diameter by 1905 (Mastran and Lowerre

1983: 8–9). Logs half that diameter were used for pulpwood

20

Figure 10—Biltmore Forest School group receiving instruction from Dr.

Schenck (center). [USDA Forest Service photograph.]
(Schwarzkopf 1985: 84). A contemporary estimate of the

total cut in the 16 mountain counties of North Carolina in

1909 was 327 million board feet, or 105 million board feet

per acre of forest (Holmes 1911: 17). Similar cutting

occurred throughout the Southern Appalachians. A large

splash dam built across the Big Sandy in 1909 was

particularly effective for log transport (fig. 13) and the

saleable hardwoods of the Big Sandy basin were depleted in

10 years. A few remote slopes escaped logging and fire, but

many mountainsides were left denuded. In West Virginia

and eastern Kentucky, the lumber industry was superseded

by the coal industry during the early 20th century. By 1909,

the lumber boom was declining, and, by the 1920’s, most

lumber companies had moved to other regions (Eller 1982:

104–112, 126–127; Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 8–9).

In addition to hastening deforestation, the economic upswing

after 1900 tripled the production of coal in the Southern

Appalachians. By 1930, the region supplied 80 percent of

the nation’s coal. Eastern Kentucky and southern West

Virginia continued to be the chief coal regions, with

secondary centers in southwestern Virginia and eastern

Tennessee. The population of the coal counties in southern

West Virginia increased 400 percent between 1890 and

1920. Hundreds of small mines employing 10 to 300 men

ran coal camps throughout the hollows. The small operators

competed with the large companies that eventually

dominated the industry in West Virginia and eastern

Kentucky. By 1910, U.S. Steel and the Pennsylvania

Railroad controlled the important Flat Top-Pocahontas fields

through interlocking company directorates. After 1915, a

few large firms dominated the industry and the countryside

with their company towns (Conley 1960: 234–235, Eller

1982: 128–153). Increased demand for coal during World

War I fueled further expansion of the coal industry. Both the

number of mines and the rate of production per mine rose to

meet the needs of wartime industry. Peak years of

production occurred between 1915 and 1926. 

In the 1920’s, unstable coal markets led to decreased

profits. Coal companies responded by cutting wages and

increasing mechanization. Workers responded with strikes;

the resulting labor unrest and violence as companies sought

to quell unionization further disrupted the industry. When

the Great Depression hit, the industry collapsed (Conley

1960: 36–37, Eller 1982: 153–160). The social

consequences of the coal industry in the early 20th century

have excited more comment than the environmental

consequences. The effects on workers’ health was

particularly terrible and grew worse with mechanization.

Black lung, silicosis, and pneumonia caused by inhaling

mine dust took many lives (Etheridge 1989: 1394).

Nevertheless, the environmental effects were obvious.

Large holes gaped in the mountainsides accompanied by

piles of mine wastes, and coal dust coated the landscape.

Poor sanitation in the towns and acid runoff from mines and

railroad cuts polluted the water. Fish, game, and plant

populations were greatly reduced in mining districts by both

the effects of mining and the immense jump in human

numbers. Demand for mine timbers and railroad ties

contributed to the clearing of forests, and coal companies

were often consolidated with lumber companies (Eller 1982:

161–162, Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 6). A new method

begun in 1914, strip mining, would cause even more

environmental disruption in later years (Conley 1960: 41). 

Although not as large as the coal industry, the copper and

iron industries also grew during the early 20th century. In

eastern Tennessee and northern Georgia, the acid fumes

from copper and iron production killed thousands of acres

of forest. The acids and accompanying loss of vegetation

killed wildlife and fish, damaged streams, and increased

erosion and silting. This industry was largely gone by

World War I, but the devastation remained. In western

North Carolina, mica and kaolin mining continued through

the twenties, and some of the booming textile industry

spilled over into the mountain counties of the Carolinas,

Virginia, and Tennessee. Other industries dependent on the

lumber industry produced furniture, rayon, paper, and

leather. Production of these commodities contributed to

resource use, pollution, and environmental change in the

Southern Appalachians. However, the end of the lumber

boom after World War I slowed their growth and virtually

ended leather production in the southern mountains (Eller

1982: 123–126, Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 6). 

The industrial development of the Southern Appalachians

gravely affected the inhabitants of the mountains, both

human and animal. Mountain lions became so rare that

many thought sightings were figments of the imagination

(Bolgiano 1995). The last wolf in Virginia was shot in

1910. Beaver vanished and bear, wild turkey, and deer were

nearly gone. Native trout populations decreased sharply

because deforestation caused silting and warmed streams.

Attempts to restock fish populations in the 1930’s

compounded the problem by introducing rainbow trout

from California. Rainbow trout out-competed native brown

trout in many streams (Lewis 1988: 22, Sarvis 1992: 6–7).

By 1912, the chestnut blight had struck Virginia (fig. 14). In

the mid-1920’s, it spread through the Southern

Appalachians, changing the composition of the forests

forever (Hepting 1964: 11–12). In 1912, another event

critical to the mountain landscape occurred—the European

wild boar arrived. Brought in to stock a hunting preserve,

the boar escaped and are now exotic nuisances in the Great

Smoky Mountains (Frome 1980: 274–275).

Forest farming traditions also suffered. By 1930, only 60

percent of Southern Appalachian lands were in mountain

farms, and the population was increasing. The average farm

was reduced to 76 acres. Lumbering and industrialization

had destroyed the livestock industry by destroying the

21
22

Figure 11—Big Creek in the Biltmore Forest (a) before logs splashed down creek toward river and (b) after.

a
23

b
forest range. Company towns, usually supplied from outside

the region, did not provide significant markets for mountain

farmers. Without markets, farmers had no income to sustain

agricultural intensification with chemical fertilizers.

Consequently, the productivity of mountain farms declined

as erosion and soil exhaustion grew worse. Tenancy and

part-time farming combined with wage labor became

prevalent (Eller 1982: 230–231, Otto 1983: 24–25).

Exceptions did exist. The farmers of Cades Cove bought

machinery and improved livestock during these years.

Because no railroad ever reached the cove, large-scale

lumbering never disrupted traditional farming practices.

Sawmills were located close enough, however, to provide

wage labor to cove residents who wanted it. Few

neighborhoods were so lucky (Dunn 1988: 225–228).

Early Conservation in the Southern Appalachians

The conservationist response to the rapid depletion of

resources in the Southern Appalachians was immediate but

took some time to have an effect. In 1902, the National

Hardwood Lumber Association and the National Lumber

Manufacturer’s Association endorsed creation of a Southern

Appalachian forest reserve. Large corporations favored a

reserve; the government’s purchase of cutover lands would

relieve them of tax responsibility for the property and

promote reforestation for future supplies. In 1905, the AFA

also endorsed the concept of reserves in the Appalachians.

When the Appalachian National Park Association, renamed

the Appalachian National Forest Reserve Association in

1903, disbanded, the AFA took up the effort to establish

national forests in the East (Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 16).

Severe floods, such as those on the Monongahela and Ohio

Rivers in 1907, heightened public concern for watershed

protection. Proponents of eastern forest reserves used the

need for watershed protection to push for passage of the

Weeks Act in 1911 (Eller 1982: 117, Steen 1976: 96–97).

The Weeks Act cleared the way for the establishment of

national forests in the East. Because the authority to

purchase land for these forests was connected to the

protection of navigable streams, only land in the White

Mountains and the Southern Appalachians was considered

(Young and Mustian 1989: 12). In 1911 and 1912, 11

national forest purchase units were designated in the

Southern Appalachians including portions of Georgia, North

Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Virgin

timber covered 30 percent of the land purchased in the first

5 years. The remaining land was partially or completely

cutover, and the proportion of purchased lands cutover rose

with time. Most areas were depopulated and out of the hands

of local residents, but some were caught in a web of

overlapping land titles. The National Forest Reservation

Commission chose not to use condemnation to acquire these

lands, fearing it would cause ill will and undermine public

support for conservation. Most conflicts were resolved, but

24

Figure 12—Lidgerwood high lead skidder and Shay locomotive used for logging in the Pigeon River watershed in western North Carolina.

(USDA Forest Service photograph.)
25

Figure 13—Great splash dam of the Yellow Poplar Lumber Company on the Big Sandy River, Virginia.
26

Figure 14—Dead chestnut on a typical Blue Ridge plateau.
title difficulties led to abandonment of the Smoky Mountain

Purchase Unit. In 1923, a movement proposed designating

this area as a national park (Mastran and Lowerre 1983:

23–27, Young and Mustian 1989: 12–14). 

Between 1911 and 1916, the U.S. Department of Agriculture

(USDA) Forest Service purchased much of the land that

became Pisgah, Nantahala, Chattahoochee, Cherokee, and

Jefferson National Forests. The Vanderbilt estate provided

the foundation of the first eastern national forest, Pisgah,

proclaimed in 1916 (fig. 15). In 1918, northern Alabama

received its first national forest, now known as the William

B. Bankhead National Forest. The Monongahela National

Forest in West Virginia became official in 1920. When the

Chattahoochee, Sumter, and Talladega National Forests were

proclaimed in 1936, the boundaries of the purchase units and

forests in the Southern Appalachians approximated their

present form (Anon. 1952, McKim 1970: 8, Mastran and

Lowerre 1983: 29). These were joined by the Cumberland

National Forest of eastern Kentucky, later renamed the

Daniel Boone National Forest, in 1937 (Collins 1975: 203).

During the 1920’s, Congress passed additional legislation

facilitating the expansion of national forests in the East. The

Clarke-McNary Act of 1924 allowed the purchase of land

for timber growing. It also broadened joint Federal-State

work in fire protection and forestry. In 1925, the Weeks Law

Exchange Act eased consolidation of national forests by

allowing the trade of titles to land within forest boundaries

for comparable land elsewhere (Mastran and Lowerre 1983:

29, Young and Mustian 1989: 17). Legislation passed during

1928 appropriated more money for land purchases and

authorized forestry research and surveys.

The renewed movement for a national park in the Southern

Appalachians gathered momentum through the 1920’s.

Support for national parks was building on the national

level. After the Organic Act of 1916 created the National

Park Service, Director Stephen T. Mather and Assistant

Director Horace M. Albright considered the Southern

Appalachians as one of the first sites for a new park (Frome

1980: 178–179). The Secretary of the Interior formed the

Southern Appalachian National Park Committee in 1924 to

study the question. More than 20 sites were under

consideration, including the Great Smokies, the Grandfather

Mountain-Linville Gorge region, and the Skyland district of

the Shenandoah. Finally, in 1926, Congress passed a bill

authorizing the creation of two parks in the Southern

Appalachians: Shenandoah National Park and Great Smoky

Mountains National Park. A third eastern park was also

27

Figure 15—Pink Beds, part of the Biltmore Estate in 1895, is an attraction in the Pisgah National Forest today.
included: Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. A

long period of land acquisition and political struggle

ensued. The final dedications did not occur until 1936 (for

Shenandoah) and 1940 (for the Great Smoky Mountains)

(Campbell 1960: 22–30, 44–45; Lambert 1989: 173–207).

Mountaineers continued to graze livestock, hunt game, and

cut wood on the ridges. Traditional forest uses and range

burning conflicted with the management objectives of the

USDA Forest Service. Since 1898, the Department of the

Interior had banned grazing on forest reserves except in the

Pacific Northwest (Steen 1976: 65). The Division of

Forestry, which became the USDA Forest Service in 1905,

regulated the cutting of forests, and free use of timber by

residents was considered a privilege rather than a right

(Steen 1976: 59). Many of the national forests in the

Southern Appalachians were game preserves in cooperative

agreement with the States (Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 28,

Satterthwaite 1993: 13–14). Fire control was another high

priority in the new national forests, and little distinction was

made between wildfire and fires used to manage the forests

(fig. 16). As with wildlife, fire control was a joint effort

between State and Federal officials. A successful tactic in

promoting these changes in forest use was the employment

of local residents as forest rangers. Local rangers acted as

liaisons and educators for the communities surrounding the

national forests (Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 32–37, Sarvis

1993: 171–172, Steen 1976: 135–137). Nevertheless,

conflict continued and grew as Federal land stewardship

expanded. When the Depression drove thousands of people

back onto the land in the Southern Appalachians, Federal

land policy would reshape the society and the landscape of

the Southern Appalachians once again. 

Great Depression and New Deal

Federal land acquisitions contributed to the decline of farm

acreage and population in counties where they were made,

especially in northern Georgia. Land condemnations for the

new national parks created opposition to Federal activities by

mountaineers. But Federal agencies also provided employment

for local residents, which became increasingly important as

agriculture and industry declined during the 1920’s and

collapsed with the Depression. Both the positive and negative

aspects of the Federal presence intensified during the 1930’s.

In terms of conservation, the Depression accomplished what

the USDA Forest Service had been unable to do: it reduced

timber cutting throughout the Southern Appalachians

(Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 38–39, 44). The slowdown in

mining and other industries reduced pressure on mountain

resources and environment, but subsistence agriculture

became a major cause of land degradation in the 1930’s. 

In the coal-producing counties, the mill towns, and the

cities, many people lost their jobs and joined the movement

back to the land. Farm acreage remained steady during the

Depression, but the number of farms increased to about

400,000. Because most farms were too small to allow

fallowing and fertilizer was too expensive, farmers eked out

a precarious existence from exhausted and eroding fields

(Kirby 1987: 99–100, Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 44–46,

Otto 1983: 25). Timber and mine country were hit hard

because populations were higher and the land had already

been damaged by industry. The valley regions, which

continued to rely on mixed farming of grain, dairy, and

livestock, were more prosperous. A few neighborhoods

raised fruit and vegetables or tobacco for sale, and the

northern portions of Georgia and Alabama adopted the

cotton culture of the Piedmont (Kirby 1987: 87–95). 

New Deal reforms led to the purchase of large quantities of

land by the Federal Government. National forests expanded

using New Deal money to buy out farmers and company

lands. Many companies sold only the surface rights to the

government, retaining the mineral rights. At the time, this

arrangement was agreeable to both parties, but in later

decades it would become a source of conflict. In 1933, three

new programs augmented USDA Forest Service and

National Park Service activities in the Southern

Appalachians: the Agricultural Adjustment Administration

(AAA), the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and the

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The AAA bought

“submarginal” farmlands and resettled farm families on

better farms elsewhere. This program was moved to the

Resettlement Administration, then to the Farm Security

Administration, and later died of insufficient funding under

the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. Because funding was

insufficient, many farm families received payment for their

land but no further aid. Because the money from the sale of

their land was often not enough to pay for a new farm, help

from the AAA actually worsened the financial situation of

some families. Most of the land removed from farming went

to the national forests and parks, but many tenant farmers

remained on Federal land. The National Park Service moved

the mountaineers off park lands, but the USDA Forest

Service allowed them to stay on the national forests (Kirby

1987: 57–60, Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 48–51).

The TVA had an immense impact on the Valley and Ridge

province from southwestern Virginia through eastern

Tennessee to northern Alabama. Dam-building projects

provided employment for thousands of people, supplied

electricity to some mountain counties, and helped control

flooding (Lowitt 1989: 365–366). Nevertheless, resentment

toward the Federal Government increased when dam

projects flooded scarce high-quality farmland in valleys,

displaced many families, and condemned much of the land.

Some reformers had long advocated moving mountaineers

out of the mountains and into the cities and towns where it

was assumed they would be better off. Whether intentional

or not, New Deal policies often had this effect as large

portions of many mountain counties became public property

(Eller 1982: 120, 240; Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 51–52). 

28
Unlike the mixed reaction to and results of other

government programs, certain programs were widely

popular. The CCC, the Federal Emergency Relief

Administration (FERA), and the Works Progress

Administration (WPA) made President Roosevelt a hero in

many homes. The first beneficiary of this labor supply was

the USDA Forest Service, which remained in charge of at

least half of the CCC men until the program ended in 1942.

The first CCC camp was located on the George Washington

National Forest. At this camp and many others throughout

the Southern Appalachians, men planted trees (fig. 17);

improved timber stands; built recreational facilities, trails,

and telephone lines; and worked as firefighters. The TVA,

the National Park Service, the newly established Soil

Conservation Service, and various State parks employed the

CCC for similar work. Some workers came from the

northeastern cities, but many were native to the area or the

State. Some graduated from the CCC to jobs in the USDA

Forest Service (Kirby 1987: 56–57, Mastran and Lowerre

1983: 71–80, Satterthwaite 1993: 17–18).

Civilian Conservation Corps and FERA jobs with the

National Park Service in the Southern Appalachians were

also popular. The Blue Ridge Parkway and the Skyline

Drive were welcomed both for immediate employment

opportunities and for future tourism. However, although up

to 1,200 people were employed at a time, the roads were

not welcomed universally. The Cherokee of western North

Carolina refused to allow the parkway across their lands.

After weathering land allotment and tribal disbandment

plans in the 1920’s, they were not eager to part with any

more land. The parkway eventually was built on an

alternative route through Cherokee land that did not destroy

the farming communities of Soco Valley (Jolley 1969: 55,

93–101; Neely 1992: 30). Many other landowners in the

Great Smoky Mountains National Park and along the Blue

Ridge Parkway also refused to sell. Grants of lifetime

tenure were made to some of these individuals, but many

others were evicted. Even when lifetime tenures were

granted, communities were destroyed. Ironically, the

National Park Service later found that it valued the

29

Figure 16—Pisgah National Forest crew riding to fire.
agricultural landscape of some communities and began to

maintain them artificially, minus the inhabitants (Dunn

1988: 241-257, Madden and Jones 1977).

With some exceptions, the Depression years were good for

the environment of the Southern Appalachians. The

consequences for mountain communities were mixed at

best. Depression-era work programs reforested land and

reduced erosion and fires. The slump in industry slowed

pollution and depletion of resources. Government policies

dislocated communities but reduced land degradation in the

process. The ambiguous record of these years created some

additional management problems for foresters and park

rangers. Unhappiness with the government from loss of

homes and loss of hunting and fishing rights or conflict

over moonshining was sometimes expressed through arson.

Paradoxically, fires were sometimes set to create work

opportunities for firefighting crews (Sarvis 1993: 34).

Rangers who handled situations with tact generally had

fewer fires in their districts (Hays 1993: 20–26,

Satterthwaite 1993: 9).

Another significant event, facilitated by the growth of

Federal and State lands during the 1930’s, was the

completion of the Appalachian Trail (fig. 18) from northern

Georgia to Maine in 1937 (Foster 1987: 12). A less beneficial

aspect of park, trail, and road development born in the thirties

was the increasing access to formerly remote areas. While

few parts of the Southern Appalachians were ever truly

untouched by humans, national forests, parks, and parkways

brought more people and people brought automobiles. Robert

Marshall expressed concern as early as 1934 that the

parkway would destroy wilderness areas (Jolley 1969: 78).

The growth of government participation in conservation

included a growth in research. The Southern Appalachians

had attracted scientific curiosity for centuries, usually

combined with a colonizer’s eye for profits. Botany,

geology, geography, and zoology interested many early

European writers. The earliest well-known account was

written by John Lederer in the mid-1600’s. Naturalists Mark

Catesby, John Bartram, and his son, William Bartram,

included the Southern Appalachians in their wanderings of

the 1700’s. From France, Andre Michaux and Francois

Michaux traveled to study the plants of these mountains. In

the 19th century, Asa Gray, Arnold Guyot, John Fraser, and

many others investigated the region (Schwarzkopf 1985:

14–19). In the late 19th century, forestry arrived with

Gifford Pinchot and Carl A. Schenck; mycologists and

pathologists began studying in the Southern Appalachian

forests around 1890, and the USDA Forest Service

continued this work. The chestnut blight drew most of the

attention in the early 20th century, but the arrival of the CCC

shifted attention to the effects of stand improvement work

on tree diseases (Hepting 1964).

30

Figure 17—Civilian Conservation Corps reforestation project in eastern Tennessee. (Courtesy Morehead Ranger District, Daniel Boone National Forest.)
The founding of the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station

in 1921 and the Coweeta Experimental Forest in 1934

provided evidence that the fields of geology, climatology,

soil science, zoology, botany, agronomy, and hydrology

were becoming important scientific endeavors (fig. 19).

Experiments on the effects of timber management on

wildlife and the use of fire in timber management led to

important policy decisions (Young and Mustian 1989: 29,

33–34). The fledgling discipline of archaeology received

funding as a relief project in the 1930’s, and the work

marked the beginning of the modern era of archaeology in

the Southeast (Coe 1983: 165–170, Haag 1985: 272–280).

The widespread clearcutting and farm abandonment of the

late 19th and early 20th centuries resulted in large expanses

of even-aged forest. Stands containing several age classes

developed on sites where previous management or selective

cutting had occurred (Young and Mustian 1989: 27). The

chestnut blight had removed one dominant species from the

landscape, whereas the introduction of the European wild

boar and rainbow trout provided new ones. Water pollution,

stream silting, and dam projects changed aquatic

ecosystems, sometimes beyond recognition. However, in

places once devastated by mining and lumbering, new

national forests and parks had begun to moderate human

impact on the land. Reforestation and wildlife restocking

programs attempted to reverse the worst excesses of the late

19th and early 20th centuries. New research aided

conservationist efforts as did labor provided by New Deal

programs. Resource use and environmental change in the

Southern Appalachians had become a national issue and

would remain one.

World War II and the 1950’s

During World War II, conservation work slowed, and the

demands of industry on the Southern Appalachians

increased. By 1942, the CCC had been disbanded due to

lack of manpower. The military and wartime industry

absorbed the unemployed into the national war effort.

Government funding for national forests, parks, and other

conservation projects dried up as resources were redirected

into military channels. In the national forests, timber cutting

increased to meet wartime demands while timber stand

improvement work and planting declined to pre-CCC

levels. Wood was needed for a multitude of military uses:

construction projects, railroad ties, aircraft, truck beds,

ships, packing crates, cellulose for dynamite, glycerol for

nitroglycerin, wood plastic, rosin, and turpentine (Steen

31

Figure 18—Above the clouds on Sharp Top Mountain on the Appalachian Trail.
1976: 246–247, Young and Mustian 1989: 31–32). Even

inferior trees previously passed over were salable. In spite

of the enormous demand, timber growth in the southern

mountains was higher than the overall cut. But much of this

growth was in young secondary forests not ready for

harvesting (Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 95).

With the booming economy of the war years, the number of

abandoned farms in the Southern Appalachians increased.

Millions of people left the southern countryside and

migrated to cities and industrial work (Kirby 1987:

304–305). After the war, these lands contributed to an

expansion of Federal holdings in the mountains (Otto 1983:

26). Wartime emigration and economic opportunities

gradually improved relations between mountaineers and the

government land managers of the Southern Appalachians.

By the end of World War II, arson cases had dropped

dramatically in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

(Hays 1993: 27). National forests also experienced a

decrease in fires during and after the war. With the

dependence of the military on wood and wood products,

destruction of woodland through arson was equated with

sabotage, even drawing the interest of the Federal Bureau of

Investigation. In the Jefferson National Forest of Virginia,

fires dropped 46 percent in 1941, 25 percent in 1942, and

another 20 percent in 1943 (Sarvis 1993: 58). During the

war, tourism was almost nonexistent. Skyline Drive in the

Shenandoah National Park averaged only three or four cars

per day. Bus trips from Washington, DC, were organized to

fill the gap (Lambert 1989: 264–265).

Jobs reappeared in mining and lumbering as well as in urban

factories. Ninety percent of the timber sales during World

War II were less than $500, allowing mountain inhabitants to

operate small lumbering enterprises in addition to working

for lumber companies. Labor shortages encouraged

mechanization, especially in coal mining. As trucks and the

new roads built by the CCC and WPA replaced railroads,

mining began in areas that were previously inaccessible.

Small seams of coal could be worked as short-term mines

and then abandoned. After the war, the new machines made

strip mining increasingly important. The reemergence of

extractive industries in the Southern Appalachians reinforced

economic trends begun in the late 19th century and

undermined Depression-era projects aimed at diversification

(Caudill 1963, Currens and Smith 1977, Mastran and

Lowerre 1983: 95–98, Rice 1972: 241).

One Depression-era agency, the TVA, remained an important

employer throughout the period. The power-generating

projects of the TVA met the increasing need for electricity

while employing 42,000 people in the Southern Appalachians

in 1942 and 1943. One large project spurred on by the war

effort was Fontana Dam on the Little Tennessee River on the

32

Figure 19—Research biologist at work in the Coweeta Experimental Forest. (USDA Forest Service photograph.)
edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Dam

construction began in 1942 and lasted 3 years. Upon its

completion, the TVA transferred 45,920 acres of land

between Fontana Lake and the park to the National Park

Service. A condition of the transfer was that the National

Park Service would replace a stretch of highway flooded by

the lake. The highway has not been built to this day because

conflict continues over pollution from the acidic Anakeesta

rock that would be exposed in construction. Tennessee Valley

Authority power plants also contributed to the demand for

coal. Critics charged that TVA coal use encouraged strip

mining in the Southern Appalachians (Campbell 1960: 132,

Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 98–99).

In 1943, the TVA initiated programs against water pollution

in response to the growing populations and industrialization

of the Tennessee Valley. The agency was particularly

concerned with untreated domestic waste and industrial

wastes from paper and textile mills in southwestern

Virginia, western North Carolina, and eastern Tennessee.

However, the TVA proceeded cautiously, not willing to

antagonize municipalities or industries. The TVA decided to

participate in stream surveys and water pollution control

only when requested to do so by the State of Tennessee. As

a result, the TVA played a minor role in water quality

control through the 1960’s (Schaffer 1989).

Demand for coal declined during a postwar economic

depression, although the TVA power plants provided one

steady market. As the economy recovered, mineral rights

retained by mining companies on land sold to national forests

began to present a new arena of conflict. Mining companies

began to request permits to strip-mine coal deposits in the

national forests in 1953, when the Stearns Coal and Lumber

Company sought access to deposits on the Cumberland

National Forest. The request was denied throughout repeated

appeals, and the company abandoned the project in 1955

(Collins 1975: 263–269). Mineral management also became a

problem in the Monongahela National Forest during and after

World War II. Strip mining occurred in the Monongahela

during the 1950’s, as did oil and gas drilling (McKim 1970:

51–52). Other national forests in the Southern Appalachians

had fewer problems with managing mineral resources.

Continuing mechanization forced more people to migrate

out of the coal-producing regions in search of work. Blue

Ridge populations remained stable, but the populations of

the Valley and Ridge province of eastern Tennessee

increased as its cities grew. Most migrants were young,

which led to a “graying” of mountain populations. The

relationship between Federal land ownership and outmigration is unclear. While many counties with a high

proportion of national forest land did have high rates of outmigration, their rates were no higher than many counties

with little or no national forest acreage. In contrast, counties

with high percentages of national park land had high rates

of population loss, primarily because park land was closed

to mountaineers’ use (Brown and Hillery 1962, Mastran and

Lowerre 1983: 101–103).

Management of the national forests in the Southern

Appalachians kept many of its prewar features. Multipleuse management, first propounded in the Copeland Report

of 1933, directed attention toward timber, water, range,

recreation, wildlife, research, State aid, and fire protection,

among its many aims (Steen 1976: 201–202). Fire control

(fig. 20), reforestation, and timber stand improvement

remained top priorities. Forestry efforts of the previous

decades resulted in improved stocking and growth of the

forests. By the early fifties, 4,121,000 acres of southern

national forests were in upland hardwoods, primarily in the

mountains. Wildlife programs remained popular, especially

with local residents who had traditionally relied on hunting

for part of their subsistence as well as for recreation.

Timber sales policy continued to emphasize small sales to

local loggers, both for the benefit of the mountain economy

and for the benefit of national forest public relations. This

policy also reflected the changing structure of the logging

industry in the 1950’s. Small portable mills and trucks

allowed small operations to compete with large

corporations. Like miners, loggers were able to reach areas

unsuited to railroads and tap resources too limited for large

companies. Foresters continued to contend with tenants on

national forest lands. Most were allowed to stay by paying

small permit fees (Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 114–119,

Satterthwaite 1993: 21, Young and Mustian 1989: 35–37).

The biggest boom to affect the Southern Appalachians in

the postwar years was the growth of the tourist industry.

The completed portions of the Blue Ridge Parkway

received 11⁄2 million visitors in 1947 (Craig 1948: 200).

Recreational use of national forests in the Southern

Appalachians and across the Nation increased

astronomically between 1945 and 1960 (fig. 21). An

exchange of lakeshore property in the Nantahala National

Forest of North Carolina for nearby forest acreage allowed

the construction of a resort hotel on Lake Santeelah. Most

recreational facilities were small-scale camping and

picnicking areas constructed by the CCC during the thirties,

but some forest land was leased for private vacation

cottages. To some extent, the USDA Forest Service was

forced into recreational management in response to the

staggering growth of tourism. For the first time, water and

game were given priority over timber production in some

districts. Overuse of existing facilities caused increasing

problems with water pollution, litter, fires, and destruction

of vegetation (Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 107–112).

The growth of recreation was also reflected in the

continuing development of the Appalachian Trail. Sections

of trail that had fallen into disrepair during the war were

rebuilt, and trail maintenance organizations were reformed.

New construction projects aimed at absorbing postwar

economic reductions threatened sections of the trail and

33
remote areas of the Southern Appalachians with further

exposure to outside development. Proposed extensions of

the Blue Ridge Parkway into northern Georgia would have

affected 75 miles of the trail and opened thousands of acres

to tourism. Opposition to this extension eventually led to

the movement to transfer the Appalachian Trail into public

stewardship (Foster 1987: 13–14).

The National Park Service felt similar pressure from

increasing tourism, but with fewer conflicts over

management priorities. Because recreation was always one

of the prime features of the national parks, the primary

conflict was between recreation and preservation. This

conflict was illustrated when tree growth obscured scenic

vistas along Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park,

and a program of clearing began to restore the views. This

decision drew criticism from conservationists for cutting

healthy trees in a national park, but the practice continued.

The park received 11⁄2 million visitors in 1955 (Lambert

1989: 265–266, 268). Visitors to the Great Smoky

Mountains National Park rose in number from a low of

383,116 in 1943 to 41⁄2 million by 1960 (Campbell 1960:

143). Like the national forests, the national parks began to

face the effects of increasing numbers of people.

34

Figure 20—Cooling down a burning log along fireline in the Cherokee National Forest.
Recent Decades

The Southern Appalachians after 1960 were both a new

place and an old one. From northern Georgia and Alabama

to the Shenandoah and beyond, the ancient mountains still

stood. But in the coal fields, the very mountains seemed

threatened with destruction from strip mining and the

subsidence of ground above collapsing mine shafts. New

roads and machinery spread mining and logging into

previously remote corners of the region. Loggers, at least,

could use these developments to spread their impact more

thinly across the landscape, but fewer areas were

completely immune from the chainsaw. The continued

prevalence of extractive industries in the southern

mountains left the residents more vulnerable to economic

trends than in areas with a varied economy. In 1960,

Appalachia was rediscovered by the Nation, this time less

as a “retarded frontier” than as a “depressed area,” a Third

World region within the boundaries of the United States.

Appalachian incomes were lower and unemployment rates

were higher than in the rest of the country. The United

States as a whole was 70 percent urban compared to 44

percent in Appalachia. Education levels and living

standards were lower in these mountains than elsewhere,

and working-age adults were still leaving the area in large

numbers (Appalachian Regional Commission 1973: 21–22).

In response to these conditions, President Kennedy appointed

a task force to study the problem. The task force proposed

the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), which was

established under President Johnson in 1964. The ARC and

other programs of Johnson’s “War on Poverty” attempted to

help mountaineers with strategies remarkably similar to New

Deal programs: work corps, road building, and economic

programs designed to remake the mountain economy in the

image of more diversified regions (Gaventa 1980: 127).

Many of the employment programs constructed recreational

facilities, roads, trails, and buildings on national forests,

improved timber stands and habitats, and worked to control

erosion and fire. Funding, never adequate for the goals of the

35

Figure 21—Cliffside Lake Recreation Area, Nantahala National Forest in the 1950’s.
programs, was reduced in the late sixties. Development

programs often failed to restructure the extractive economies

that sent profits to investors outside of the region and

provided few benefits for local populations. Critics charged

that the programs misspent funds, lacked focus, and ignored

the neediest areas. The Job Corps was one of the few

programs that was generally popular, and six Job Corps

Centers remained in operation in Southern Appalachian

national forests through the 1980’s (Gaventa 1980: 129–131,

Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 126–136). The ARC’s

environmental programs focused on air pollution, erosion

control, land-use planning, mining, solid waste disposal,

timber, and water (Appalachian Regional Commission 1973).

The TVA received increasing scrutiny after 1960 for its role

in altering river drainages and criticism for its annual

purchases of coal provided by strip mining. In 1965, the

TVA instituted a requirement for reclamation of strip-mined

land into its coal contracts but received continued criticism

for inadequate enforcement. By 1974, the agency required

mining companies to submit land restoration plans with

their bids to supply coal (Clark 1984: 98–99). As strip

mining became more prevalent through the sixties and

seventies, controversy over the practice also grew. Court

actions between the USDA Forest Service and mining

companies resulted from strip-mining plans on national

forests, particularly in wilderness areas after the mid-1970’s

(Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 172–173).

In the national forests and parks, wildlife and fish-stocking

programs were showing signs of success as animals

multiplied in the mountains. When a new chief ranger

arrived at the Shenandoah National Park in the late 1950’s,

he was amazed at the numbers of white-tailed deer and the

mere presence of bear, beaver, and wild turkey (Lambert

1989: 268). At the same time, acid runoff from mining and

road construction, erosion from logging and construction,

and rising water temperatures from forest clearing were

damaging aquatic habitats. Exotic introductions such as the

European boar and rainbow trout threatened native plants

and animals, posing difficult management questions. Other

species, like cougar, wolf, and elk, seemed permanently lost.

More recently, the possibility of cougars surviving in the

mountains has received increased attention (Bolgiano 1995).

After 1960, multiple-use planning on the national forests

became increasingly difficult, as reflected by the passage of

the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960. This act

helped clarify USDA Forest Service policy and, thereby,

balance the many demands on the national forests. One

difficulty faced by the USDA Forest Service was the

growing conflict between recreation and logging. New

tourist facilities brought more and more vacationers into the

region who objected to the effect of logging on the

landscape; but loggers pushed for higher cutting limits to

provide more jobs to local residents (fig. 22), a position the

ARC supported (Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 130, Steen

1976: 297–302). At the same time, the tourists themselves

posed more and more of a problem for the environment,

both from their impact on the national forests and parks and

from development of private recreational facilities to serve

them (fig. 23).

The USDA Forest Service has faced other changes and

subsequent public reaction. In 1963, even-aged

management became national forest policy and common

practice in the Southern Appalachian national forests.

Because even-aged management involves clearcutting

patches of forest, it created heated controversy over the

effects on forest composition and wildlife habitat. The

conflict culminated in the Monongahela Decision of 1974

wherein a Federal judge decided the USDA Forest Service

was violating the Organic Act of 1897. The 1897 act

permitted the harvesting of only dead or mature trees. This

ruling prompted Congress to pass the National Forest

Management Act of 1976, which allowed clearcuts within

guidelines designed to protect the environment. Dissension

continues among environmentalists and resource managers

over methods and amounts of timber cutting (Roth and

Harmon 1995: 12–13, Young and Mustian 1989: 36).

Another source of controversy that arose during the 1960’s

was wilderness areas. In 1956, Senator Hubert Humphrey

made the first attempt to protect wilderness through laws.

Both the USDA Forest Service and the National Park Service

initially opposed the bill, but, after John F. Kennedy’s

election, both services actively supported wilderness

legislation. With Kennedy’s endorsement, Congress passed

the Wilderness Act in 1964. The Wilderness Act created a

National Wilderness Preservation System with lands in

national forests and parks. Thereafter, disagreements arose

between different interest groups and agencies as to what

land and how much should be designated wilderness. In

1973, National Park Service recommendations that 80,000

acres of Shenandoah National Park become wilderness led to

local opposition. Local leaders hoped for an entrance into the

park and Skyline Drive through the affected area. Wilderness

advocates criticized the National Park Service for

compromising with local communities and allowing access

roads. In spite of the political difficulties, the bill approving

the Shenandoah Wilderness passed in 1976 (Lambert 1989:

271–272). Similar disputes continue between wilderness

advocates and opponents over roads in the Fontana tract of

the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The Eastern Wilderness Act of 1975 designated five

wilderness areas in Southern Appalachian national forests.

One is in the Daniel Boone National Forest of Kentucky;

the remaining four are in the Appalachian Summit

subregion of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee. The

National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, created in 1968,

is similar to the National Wilderness Preservation System.

36
As in wildernesses, development and access are restricted

along designated wild and scenic rivers. Two rivers in the

Southern Appalachians have been affected: the New River and

the Chattooga. The Chattooga River’s designation as wild and

scenic generated considerable conflict. Fifty-seven miles of

river and 16,400 acres of land were involved, and while land

acquisition was not contested, the new restrictions on river

access caused considerable protest. Area residents feel that the

interests of urban visitors to the river are placed above those

of locals. In addition, the Big South Fork of the Cumberland

River in the Daniel Boone National Forest became a

Kentucky Wild River in 1972 and is administered by the

State. The wild status of the Big South Fork was protected

through a political compromise that replaced a planned

hydroelectric dam on the site with a national recreation area

under the National Park Service. Wild and scenic

classification also protected the New River in North Carolina

from hydroelectric development, first as a State scenic river

and then by the Federal Government in 1976. The designation

of these two rivers was accomplished with relatively little

dissension (Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 153–156).

These same issues of preservation versus use and local

versus national interests caused controversy in the

development of national recreation areas (NRA). In the

early sixties, plans were prepared for the Mount Rogers

NRA in Virginia. Disagreements over land condemnations,

land zoning, and the environmental impact of the planned

development of a ski area and a parkway enveloped the

NRA in discord by the 1970’s. As a result, the USDA

Forest Service scaled down plans and limited development

to campgrounds, picnic areas, and interpretive sites (Sarvis

1994). Land acquisition was a point of contention for other

projects during this era. The National Trail Systems Act of

1968 provided for the purchase of easements to protect the

Appalachian Trail from encroaching towns and recreational

development. In the Southern Appalachians, most of the

trail was already protected, and most land acquisitions were

cordial. However, lack of clarity in the act itself led to

procedural disagreements between the National Park

Service and the USDA Forest Service. The administrative

problems were resolved by amendments passed in 1978

(Mastran and Lowerre 1983: 157–158).

37

Figure 22—Champion Carolina, a paper mill, in the late 1950’s or early 1960’s.
Land condemnations, such as those in the Red River Gorge

of Kentucky, and wilderness designations under the

Roadless Area Review and Evaluation brought a great deal

of protest from mountaineers. Lumbermen and those

holding timber-related jobs feared loss of employment from

the removal of forest from timbering. Other mountain

residents resented additional Federal intrusions into their

communities. Owners of inholdings in proposed wilderness

areas feared loss of their land. Citizens groups also

protested the lost revenue to county governments, the

exclusion of motorized vehicles—a problem for older forest

users— and the influx of outsiders. For the most part,

dissent followed legal channels, but arson as a method of

protest was revived as well (Mastran and Lowerre 1983:

158–159, 167–172).

Some of these conflicts have been exacerbated by

differences between the viewpoints of mountaineers and

those of environmental groups, which gained in strength

after the 1960’s. Related problems have arisen between

long-time mountain dwellers and new, temporary residents

who vacation in the Southern Appalachians. National forest

and park expansions resulted in anxiety over loss of

property and homes. New areas, particularly the Redbird

Purchase Unit in Kentucky, reintroduced the USDA Forest

Service to land acquisition and rehabilitation problems that

had been common during the early 20th century.

New laws resulted in new management goals and strategies

for government agencies. In addition, the National

Environmental Policy Act of 1969 required environmental

impact studies of resource management on Federal lands.

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 gave new importance

to wildlife issues and complicated timber harvesting,

recreational development, and economic development

projects. In the 1980’s, concern over air pollution expanded

as researchers considered its role in acid rain and tree

mortality. These new problems illustrated a new

understanding of the scope of human influence on the

environment.

38

Figure 23—Scenic overlook on Potato Patch Mountain, Chattahoochee National Forest.
Recent history has provided new solutions and new

challenges to the ancient Southern Appalachian landscape.

Reforestation and restocking efforts begun in the early

1900’s have been successful in reestablishing forest cover

and many species, particularly the white-tailed deer. The

lumber supply of the region has increased substantially;

however, resource use, while varying along with the

national economy, has steadily risen. Forest management

for lumber does not provide habitat for all native species,

and conflict remains on how to provide space for both

human and nonhuman needs. Wilderness designations have

reduced human impact on some tracts of forest, but roads

have opened most corners of the mountains to industry and

tourism. Demand for timber and minerals continues to make

conservation efforts problematic, whereas pollution from

within and without the region threatens the forests and

streams. The sheer numbers of people using the Southern

Appalachians for homes, livelihood, or recreation make the

issue of human impact on the environment more important

today than ever before.

Conclusion

As it has for 10,000 years, human interaction with land,

water, and wildlife remains at the core of environmental

change but on a much larger scale. The role of humans in

landscape change has steadily increased in intensity over

the centuries until it seems to pervade every aspect of the

environment. Paleo-Indian impact on the land was limited

to establishing camps, hunting game, gathering plants, and

using fire. Human activity encouraged plants and animals

favored by fire and clearings and spread the seeds of

gathered plants. Although the impact was significant, it left

most areas relatively undisturbed. Human influence on the

environment, however, increased along with human

population, augmented at times by new technologies in

hunting, fishing, and managing plant populations. With the

development of horticulture between 2,500 and 1,000 B.C.,

the number of humans and their impact on the landscape

increased significantly. Nevertheless, widespread clearing

remained restricted to the valleys around villages and

settlements.

The arrival of Europeans and Africans in the 1500’s

introduced new species of plants and animals, new

technologies, and new diseases. New diseases caused the

first significant change, decimating the American Indian

population and causing the paramount chiefdoms of the

Southeast to collapse. Warfare and slave raids exacerbated

the social disruption, whereas trade with the newcomers led

to overhunting of deer, elk, and fur-yielding animals. Initial

European settlement focused on depopulated areas but soon

pressured American Indian hunting territories. By the late

1700’s, pressure increased on Cherokee settlements,

culminating with their removal in the 1830’s.

During the 1800’s, many species of plants and animals

became extinct or severely restricted in the Southern

Appalachians. Mining and lumbering, begun as localized

endeavors, grew into large-scale enterprises with

widespread effects. The small-scale islands of human

disturbance of prehistory and early European settlement

expanded to include all but the most remote areas.

Starting in the late 19th century, improvements in

transportation and mechanization accelerated

deforestation, resource extraction, and pollution. By the

time national forests were established in the Southern

Appalachians in the early 20th century, 70 percent of the

region’s forests were cutover. Fire and floods were

common and the composition of forest plant and animal

populations was drastically altered.

Although the conservation and environmental

movements have ameliorated some problems in the

Southern Appalachians, many problems remain. New

technology promises solutions for old problems but

creates potential new hazards for the environment.

Ecological research has expanded knowledge of

environmental processes, the needs of various species,

and the effects of many human activities. However, longterm human influence on the environment has

complicated attempts to understand mountain

ecosystems. National forests and parks have successfully

protected old forests and fostered new forests in the

region. Federal and State laws have restricted the

impacts of industry on the environment, but the

enormous increase in human population over the last

century makes pressure on the land and resources of the

Southern Appalachians inevitable. In addition, different

groups of people make different demands on the

resources of the mountains (fig. 24). Many of these

demands are incompatible, and there is not enough space

in the Southern Appalachians to give each group its own

territory. How the Southern Appalachians are divided

between industry, agriculture, tourism, and wilderness

will continue to alter the face of these ancient mountains.

Acknowledgment

Research support was provided through the project “The

history of the Southern Appalachian national forests”

under Agreement No. 29–1227 dated May 1, 1995. This

research was supported by funds provided by the U.S.

Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern

Research Station, Asheville, NC. Project administration

was coordinated by the Economics of Forest Protection

and Management Research Work Unit at Research

Triangle Park, NC. The author wishes to thank Harold K.

Steen, Carlton W. James, H. Trawick Ward, M. Jean

Black, and Richard A. Yarnell for their help in preparing

this report.

39
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44
Plant Names

Trees

Ash (Fraxinus)

Beech (Fagus grandifolia)

Butternut (Juglans cinerea)

Cherry (Prunus)

Chestnut (Castanea dentata)

Fir (Abies)

Hackberry (Celtis)

Hickory (Carya)

Oak (Quercus)

Peach (Prunus persica)

Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana)

Pine (Pinus)

Red cedar (Juniperus virginiana)

Spruce (Picea)

Sumac (Rhus)

Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis)

Tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera)

Walnut (Juglans nigra)

Herbaceous Plants

Amaranth (Amaranthus)

Beans (Phaseolus)

Bluegrass (Poa pratensis)

Bunchgrass (Galium)

Canary grass (Phalaris canariensis)

Cane (Arundinaria tecta)

Clover (Trifolium)

Copperleaf (Acalypha)

Corn/Maize (Zea mays)

Cotton (Gossypium herbaceum)

Cowpeas/Black-eyed peas (Vigna sinensis)

Cushaw (Cucurbita moschata)

Flax (Linum usitatissimum)

Ginseng (Panax quinquefolia)

Goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri)

Gourds (Cucurbita)

Grape (Vitis vinifera)

Knotweed (Polygonum erectum)

Little barley (Hordeum pusillum)

Marshelder/Sumpweed (Iva annua)

Maygrass (Phalarsis caroliniana)

Pigweed (Amaranthus retroflexus)

Pokeweed (Phytolacca decandra)

Potato (Solanum tuberosum)

Pumpkin (Curcurbita pepo)

Purslane (Portulacca oleracea)

Squash (Curcurbita maxima)

Sunflower (Helianthus annuus)

Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas)

Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum)

Watermelon (Citrullus vulgaris)

Animal Names

Bear (Ursus americanus)

Beaver (Castor canadensis)

Bison (Bison americanus)

Brown trout (Salmo fario)

Cougar/Mountain Lion/Panther (Puma concolor cougar)

Elk (Cervus canadensis)

European wild boar (Sus scrofa)

Mammoth (Elephas primigenius)

Mastodon (Mammut)

Mink (Mustela vison)

Otter (Lutra canadensis lataxina)

Rainbow trout (Salmo irideus)

Sea turtle (family Cheloniidae)

Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo)

Turtle (order Testudines)

White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)

45

Appendix

Yarnell, Susan L. 1998. The Southern Appalachians: a history of the landscape.

Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-18. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest

Service, Southern Research Station. 45 p.

Natural and geological processes have changed the Southern Appalachian landscape

repeatedly over millions of years. About 12,000 years ago, humans arrived and

became important agents of change. The extent and degree of human influence

increased along with the population. Today, pressure remains intense on the 

Southern Appalachian landscape and management issues bring contention as

different groups seek to use the region’s resources in different ways.

Keywords: Agriculture, environmental history, lumber industry, mining, prehistory,

Southern Appalachian, tourism.
The Forest Service, United States Department of

Agriculture (USDA), is dedicated to the principle of

multiple use management of the Nation’s forest 

resources for sustained yields of wood, water, forage, wildlife, and

recreation. Through forestry research, cooperation with the States

and private forest owners, and management of the National Forests

and National Grasslands, it strives—as directed by Congress—to

provide increasingly greater service to a growing Nation.

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(202) 720-5964 (voice or TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity

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