GSMNP - Fifty-years ago this spring, workmen in Great Smoky Mountains National Park were putting the finishing touches on a new open-air exhibit of historic farm buildings at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center near Cherokee, NC. The Mountain Farm Museum, previously known as the Pioneer Farmstead, was created and opened to the public in 1953. Although the job of dismantling and moving the buildings from their original sites throughout the national park to a new location had begun just a year before, efforts to create a display of historic buildings actually began many years earlier.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established primarily as a sanctuary for native plants and animals and the policy at that time was to remove evidence of human impact on the landscape and to allow the forest to reclaim the land. However, park officials eventually adopted a plan to preserve some of the cultural history of the area. In the 1930s park staff inspected more than 1700 buildings and made recommendations for preserving some of the structures. This plan initially called for up to 25 buildings to be moved from throughout the park and relocated to a site near Mingus Mill, a restored 1886 water-powered gristmill. That plan was abandoned in 1950 in favor of what one memo referred to "as one especially fine group of buildings" to be moved and placed at the site adjacent to the Oconaluftee Visitor Center.
"Fortunately," said Acting Superintendent Philip A. Francis, Jr., "this act saved a handful of remnant buildings including some that had been located in more remote areas of the Park. Moving them to this highly visible site helped to ensure the preservation of some structures that the public would normally have not seen. The Park preserves over 70 historic structures?tangible reminders of a shared past that enable us to connect one generation to another."
Today the Mountain Farm Museum preserves nine historic log farm buildings. To complement the buildings, wayside exhibits and a self-guiding booklet help tell the story of rural life in the mountains in the past to more than 250,000 visitors each year. The Mountain Farm Museum also hosts two annual special events: "Women's Work" each June, which pays tribute to the many and varied roles of rural women in the past, and the "Mountain Life Festival" each September, which includes traditional fall activities ranging from squeezing apple cider to making sorghum syrup.
Each spring the Mountain Farm Museum is the site of an education program for fourth grade students from the seven western-most counties of North Carolina. Through the program, which began in 1987, students are able to participate in activities ranging from hearth cooking and blacksmithing to studying artifacts and playing traditional games. Almost 700 fourth grade students took part in the program this spring.
To commemorate the Mountain Farm Museum's 50th anniversary a photo exhibit about the site, using historic photos from the national park's collection, will be on display at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center until the end of the year.
The visitor center bookstore is also featuring Farm Museum related items from art prints and ball caps to mugs and lapel pins to help commemorate the anniversary. These items are sold by the Great Smoky Mountains Association, a non-profit organization that works in partnership with the national park to provide funding for a variety of programs, including the Mountain Farm Museum, its education programs and special events.
The Mountain Farm Museum is located on US 441 adjacent to the national park's Oconaluftee Visitor Center, two miles north of Cherokee, NC. The site is open year-round and there is no admission fee. For more information call the visitor center at (828) 497-1904 or go to the national park's web site at www.nps.gov/grsm.
