Sometimes living amongst the pines and squirrels on the McKee Ranch is just not enough. That’s when we traverse to old home grounds.

Yes, Hubs and I traveled north recently toward the Cataloochee Valley located near Maggie Valley, North Carolina, part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

 

A few years back we discovered the place and well, this week we made a return visit. Our memories of the valley were of a history when early settlers built log cabins and plowed fertile pastures, where bubbling brooks supplied sweet, cold and clear water and cattle grazed peacefully. But today, cattle have been replaced by a large herd of elk.

 

We were not disappointed because our memories were only a faded recollection. The mountains and the valley there are so much more.

It is because I especially respect and love history that I wanted to know everything.

 

The Cataloochee Valley’s earliest known beginnings were my favorite items of interest. Native Americans were the first people to visit the beautiful valley. It was the Cherokee who hunted and fished for the abundant game, but did not settle permanently. They named the area “Gadalutsi” which means “standing up in a row.”

 

It was in the 1800s when early settlers made the first settlements. A post-Revolutionary War land speculator, Colonel Robert Love, granted homesteads to those who would settle and improve the land. One of the first families who took advantage of this offer was the Caldwell’s in 1814.

 

Now we get into the “claiming kin” part of our journey. You see Hubs had Caldwell grandparents. Yep, we were onto something.

 

And one of the original Caldwell home-places still stands there today, a lovely Eastlake style home, which was completed in 1906. Hiram Caldwell and his family, first lived, as most settlers, in a log cabin. It was built in the 1840s and was thought to be the oldest log cabin still standing in the Cataloochee when the park was established.

 

When Hiram decided to build a new house, he did it up right. The house was a modern framed structure with weatherboarding as well as interior paneling brought up the mountain from Waynesboro, located about 25 miles away. There were shingled gables, pretty paint and inside was handmade furniture from Cosby, Tennessee.

 

Today tourists can see quilting frames, a spinning wheel and loom upstairs in the home. The women of the family maintained a nice business provided by the wool of their sheep which grazed right outside the door. They made padded quilts and woven cloth which was sold or traded for goods on the open market.

 

As more settlers moved into the valley, a school was built, churches, a post office and general store. To me life seemed so idyllic there but at the same time, life was hard. There was a story about two panthers that attacked one of the early cabins. They tried to enter through the chimney. Two women were cooking and the animals must have thought the food was for their dinner.

 

It was said the women removed the cook pot from the chimney and started a blazing fire. The cats retreated and the women continued preparing the evening meal. Ah, such was life in the Cataloochee.

 

Today the area is open for tourists. This week, when we were there, the elk roamed freely in a pasture near the main road. We were able to see “part of our tax dollars at work” when park rangers and bear hunters, with dogs, worked together with a project, which included large cages placed in the center of several pastures. Not sure what was going on, because none of them were talking – not even the dogs.

 

We toured the Caldwell home, walked the bridges made out of logs and dreamed of life there during the early days (minus panthers, of course). The drive up the mountain was mainly a single-lane road, only partially paved. It seemed daring, yet exhilarating as we could really observe the “smoky” of the mountains. The cool, clear weather this week made that possible.

 

As I gazed upon the Hiram Caldwell family photo, I was certain I could see a tiny bit of family resemblance, but to be certain, it will require one more trip to the Cataloochee.

 

Anne B. McKee is executive director at Meridian Railroad Museum. See her website annemckeestoryteller.com