The Wild East: A Biography of the Great Smoky Mountains

New Perspectives on the History of the South

by Margaret Lynn Brown

The Wild East explores the social, political, and environmental changes in the Great Smoky Mountains during the 19th and 20th centuries. Although this national park is most often portrayed as a triumph of wilderness preservation, Margaret Lynn Brown concludes that the largest forested region in the eastern United States is actually a re-created wilderness -- a product of restoration and even manipulation of the land.Between 1910 and 1920, corporate lumbermen built railroads into the most remote watersheds and removed more than 60 percent of the old-growth forest. During the 1930s, landscape architects and Civilian Conservation Corps workers transformed the Smokies, building trails, campgrounds, and facilities that memorialized the rustic ideals of Roosevelt-style conservation. With the advent of the 1950s, enthusiasm for the national park system boomed again; cultural interpreters went to work. During the 1960s, however, wilderness advocates began lobbying for a more natural-looking landscape.

In the 1970s, Brown writes, the Smokies faced many of the consequences of these management decisions. Major crises pushed park officials toward a greater regard for ecology and scientists trained during the environmental movement foraged through the land's history and sought to re-create the look of the landscape before human settlement. Park management continues to waffle between these shifting views of wilderness, negotiating the often contradictory mission of promoting tourism and ensuring preservation.

Genres: History

479 pages, Hardcover

First published March 2, 2000

Reviews

[Anson Cassel Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Margaret Lynn Brown has written a fine first book about the Smokies, a park in which I have hiked almost annually for the better part of thirty years. The history of the area is familiar to me, but I was still fascinated by the details of such topics as “The Road to Nowhere,” the wild boar controversy, the introduction of horseback riding, and other choices about wildness ratified by the National Park Service. The author writes well enough, and the illustrations have been well chosen.

Like many revised dissertations, this book includes too many quotations, especially pedestrian ones from NPS personnel whom the author has interviewed. Brown is also a “tongue clucker” who treats people of the past as if they should have known better than to say, feed bears or clear-cut old growth forest. Nor do I believe that the greatest threat to the environment is “unregulated industrial capitalism,” a notion that some concentrated thoughts about the environmental disaster of sub-Saharan Africa might disabuse. At least Brown and I agree on the crassness of contemporary tourism in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.

[McD Crook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Regardless of how you enjoy encountering the Smokies, by foot or car, you should read this book. In an authoritative but very readable narrative, Brown walks you chronologically through the park's tangled evolution, providing fascinating context to the beauty and history of the place. One of the best books out there on the old mountains.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brown does an amazing job of balancing the tremendous good done by the creation of the park alongside the immense suffering and price paid by the locals because of its creation. She does this through beautiful prose that will make you forget you are reading a work of nonfiction.

[Brooke Tallent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertainingly informative.

[Mikaela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dense read, and poorly edited. But, I did learn quite a lot. My favourite chapter was the one about the bears. My enjoyment of that chapter was worth the entire read.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great history of the Smokies National Park. There were so many things in this book that I had never heard before, and it really made me think about the image the Park tries to portrait. The writing is thoughtful rather than accusatory, and it seemed pretty unbiased to me. There have been such a combination of successes and injustices done to the environment, wildlife, and human inhabitants over the history of the park, and so much political wrangling. Well written, fascinating account!

[Diann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a must read and has page 2 of the story of the Great Smoky Mountains.

[Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great read regading the natural and human history of the Smokies as well as a "To Do List" for those who are committed to protecting our beloved Smokies Mountains for generations to come.

[Brett Merold · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. learned a lot about the Smokey Mountains National park and made me excited to visit other parks in the future.