Great Smoky Mountain National Parks 75th Anniversary Celebration Continues with Oconaluftee Visitor Center Ground Breaking.

Tomorrow will be the Great Smoky Mountains national parks actual 75th anniversary and what better way to celebrate than to have the public be able to join in with a celebration at the Oconaluftee visitor center and Farm Museum? From 10 am to 2 pm there will be demonstrations, music, storytelling, dancing and a ground breaking on the new state of the art visitor center.

Long overdue, the new energy efficient visitor center will be more than 6 times larger that the present visitor center built in the 1940s by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) which was originally used as a ranger center. The new visitor center will have a museum with displays of the history and traditions of the Cherokee people, Southern Appalachian culture, the and the Park's establishment and development.

Around 2,000,000 people a year pass by Oconaluftee to get into the Great Smoky Mountains national park with nearly 350,000 visitors presently entering the Oconaluftee Visitor Center and Farm Museum area. The original building will be kept when the new visitor center is complete.

Besides the entertainment, the Park has extended a special invitation to all former CCC members who served at Great Smoky Mountains National Park to attend the groundbreaking and some are expecting some to attend.

Dale Ditmanson the parks superintendent commented "We are excited about the opportunity to hold the visitor center groundbreaking during our anniversary year and are especially honored to have several CCC men who assisted with the construction of the existing visitor center over 65 years ago. This project will represent a symbolic bridge between the past and the future of the national park".

The ground breaking ceremony hosted by Park Superintendent Dale Ditmanson will also include Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Principal Chief Michell Hicks, and Cherokee Elder Jerry Wolfe giving the "Blessing of the Ground".

The schedule for the 75th anniversary celebration at Oconaluftee 2 miles north of the Cherokee North Carolina Parks Entrance is also follows:

• 10 am - Music performed by Boogertown Gap
• 11 am - Warriors of AniKituhwa: Official Cherokee cultural ambassadors performing traditional dances including the War Dance and Eagle Tail Dance
• 11:30 am - Storytelling by Charles Maynard
• 12 pm - Groundbreaking Ceremony
• 1 pm - Music played by Earl and the Boys

Thanks to 2 fantastic organizations: the Friends of the Smokies and the Great Smoky Mountains Association the buildings and exhibits have been funded.

Both Friends and the GSMAs work and the funding make this and many projects possible within the Great Smoky Mountains national park and it is impossible for me to accurately state how much they mean to the park, the surrounding communities and me personally.

I am very grateful that Oconaluftee will finally be honoring in a significant way the Cherokee and Native Americans who have inhabited the area for more than 10,000 years.

Great Smoky Mountains Nat Park 75th Anniversary Celebration Continues Today With Park Open House

Join Great Smoky Mountains National Park Superintendent Dale Ditmanson and other park personnel at an open house today from 12 noon to 4 pm at the Sugarlands headquarters as part of the 75th Anniversary Weekend celebration.

The park headquarters just outside the city of Gatlinburg was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1940 and will be honored as part of today's celebration as well as a first-of-its-kind behind the scenes view of the Park's day-to-day operations open to anyone and the a unique opportunity to meet and talk with key managers of the Park along with the opportunity to see park equipment up close such as search and rescue, fire and road maintenance vehicles and the offices of the Great Smoky Mountains Association will also be open to the public.

According to Park Superintendent Dale Ditmanson "We will basically showcase how we perform and accomplish our duties, everything from conducting air and water quality research, protecting wildlife, treating nonnative plant and animal species, search and rescue, maintaining historic buildings and cultural landscapes, prioritizing road construction and facilities improvement projects, conducting visitor and educational programs, and carrying out our fiscal responsibilities,"

The winning quilt from the Pigeon Forge 75th Anniversary Smokies Sampler Quilt contest made by Naomi Davis of Sevierville, Tennessee will be held unveiled at 11 am at the visitor center and from 1 pm to 3 pm there will be an easy guided hike to the Sugarlands Civilian Conservation Corps camp via the Old Sugarlands Hiking Trail.

Parking for the event will be at the Sugarlands Visitor Center right next door to the headquarters.

Flowers blooming now in the Great Smoky Mountains national park? You Betcha!

Last weekend while I was hiking in Cades Cove off of the roadways and trails I noticed in a few places especially on warmer southern exposures that daffodils shoots were poking up through the ground by as much as 2 inches and 2 days ago in the Sugarlands bud formations were evident in a field of daffodils at an abandoned CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) site off trail.

Yesterday I hit the jackpot in Cades Cove - the legendary daffodils planted by the CCC at the CCC campsite on the right just after the Missionary Baptist Church are already blooming!

Some of these daffodils (what the natives here call "buttercups") were planted to spell out the CCC company name and number and the blooming plants and their distinctive green round stalks spell out "Co. 5427".

While only a few of the daffodils/ buttercups are blooming right now in Cades Cove, they will keep increasing in intensity and beauty of the next few weeks.

Some of the brown dormant grasses and weeds in the fields of Cades Cove and the rest of the Great Smoky Mountains national park are already starting to green in a little with all of the unseasonably warm weather we have had in the Smokies.

I have to correct myself. As long as the plants in any part of the park are native and not exotic plants as a naturalist I know there is no such thing as weeds in a national park or Biosphere such as the GSMNP.

These pretty little yellow daffodils that are blooming on Cades Cove right now have both a yellow cup with slight frilling and outer flower pedal in the same shade of yellow and are actually scientifically called Narcissus.

While they are not native wildflowers, at this point since they can be found at various home sites and old CCC campsites they should be listed in the "Wildflowers of the Smokies" pocket filed identification handbook as well as other flowering plants such a yucca.

While these flowers are pretty to look at, you are not allowed to pick the flowers or remove the plants. You should also take care to try to not walk on or sit on these pretty little plants so they can be enjoyed by others - and oh yes - you will be obeying a federal law.

Want to help protect the native plants on the Great Smoky Mountains national park? Join me next Saturday February 21 in Deep Creek North Carolina for Non Native plant eradication - we need more volunteers!

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Celebration to the Civilian Conservation Corps a huge success.

Imagine going back to where you worked where you were a teenager and having a crowd of people eternally grateful for the work that you had done in the Great Smoky Mountains national park 75 years latter.

Today at the Sugarlands visitor center at the Great Smoky Mountains national park that is exactly what happened after a morning filled with informative and educational lectures and musical entertainment all dedicated to the hard work performed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in this national park and other public parks programs around the country in the 1930s and into the 1940s.

The day started with a lecture with a lecture by Dr. Harley Jolley who was in the Civilian Conservation Corps himself. The lecture was amazingly entertaining but incredibly informative and included photos and a reading.

The next part of the program was a mostly musical tribute to the boys in the CCC which also had a multimedia presentation showing what the work camps were like along with some humorous antidotal stories about camp food, the dance halls and pranks.

After the morning programs everyone went outside to an area between the Sugarlands Visitors center and the National Park headquarters which was built by the CCC. Here there was a small ceremony when the 16 alumni who showed up to the park were given certificates and competitive patches in appreciation of their service.

Especially interesting was that CCC corpsman Clarence Allison pictured above to the left of Great Smoky Mountains national park superintendent Dale Ditmanson showed up in his original Civilian Conservation Corps uniform.

After the certificates were given out the alumni gathered around a rock along the path and along with Dale Ditmanson unveiled a plaque dedicated to the CCC.

It was a very emotional day for the families and well as the corpsmen some of which had not seen each other on more than 70 years.

The last CCC reunion on the par was for the 50th anniversary and it was attended by more than 1101 alumni. I hope those that are able to will attend next September's dedication to the 75th anniversary of the park.

After the dedication there was a guided hike to the Sugarlands CCC camp which I took as well as more lectures and a panel discussion.

The 3 mile guided hike to the CCC was lead by park volunteer Raymond Palmar. Along for the hike was an alumni's son as well as a man who had been taken to the Sugarlands CCC camp at age 7.

Our hike included a stop by an old quarry and along the old abandoned roadside where there were still utility poles standing in the woods. We then saw where a clock tower, rec hall and mess hall stood as well as a stone trash incinerator.

While many of these artifacts we saw I was already familiar with from hiking in the area so long, these were plenty of new facts I learned as well as the location of the officer quarters.

While I greatly appreciate what the CCC had done for the creation of the national park, I learned for more today and my appreciation has grown even more.

Guided hike at the Kephart Prong Trail to the CCC Camp.

Yesterday was the start of the Great Smoky Mountains national parks salute to the 75th anniversary of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) which started with a guided hike by veteran park ranger Brad Free and the park volunteer who maintains this historic trail.

While weather was concern, real rain never materialized and the whole hike was chock full of demonstrations, facts, historic photographs and group discussions.

Now I am on my way to the Sugarlands when there will be an all day program to salute the CCC. I come to have with even appreciation of the hard work these young men did to build the Great Smoky Mountains national park.

Civilian Conservation Corps being honored at the Great Smoky Mountains national park

The Sugarlands visitor center in the Great Smoky Mountains national park near the Gatlinburg Tennessee park entrance will be where the monumental programs commemorating the 75th Anniversary Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and their work will be held from 10:00 am - 4:00 pm on September 27th.

Along with the dedications, musical entertainment, panel discussions and lectures at the Sugarlands visitor center, both the Oconaluftee visitor center near the Cherokee North Carolina entrance of the park as well as the Sugarlands visitor center will have special CCC exhibits.

By now you may be wondering what the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was. The CCC is a perfect example of the long lasting effect that a quality socially responsible government program can have.

Established in 19333 during the Great Depression the CCC was a federal work project aimed at conservation work on federal and state lands while employing unmarried, unemployed, men that were physically fit and from18 to 25 years of age. I have been told that some as young as 15 were able to sneak into the program.

No only where these men able to scratch out a few dollars for themselves which they mostly sent home to their families, they were able to learn valuable skills and gain experience all the while improving the quality of public lands throughout the United States.

Look around in the Great Smoky Mountains national park and almost everything you see that is man made was originally built by these hard working hardy men. Hiking as much as I do in the park I can come back after a long day completely drained and I was just hiking on a trail, not building it rock by rock by hand.

This picture shows workers from the CCC working on the Bull Head Trail. This hiking trail starts in the Roaring Fork Area of the park near Gatlinburg and climbs all the way up to Mount Le Conte. Taking the Bull Head Hiking trail up and retuning back down via the Rainbow Falls trail is my favorite way to climb Mt Le Conte.

The roads and bridges in the Great Smoky Mountains were also built by the CCC. The beauty of the hand cut blocks of stone that make up the bridges and guard rails in the GSMNP blend incredibly well with the natural backdrop of the park. Some of the buildings such as the park headquarters near Gatlinburg and the Oconaluftee visitor center were also built by the CCC along with the fire and lookout towers.

All this work was done by close to 4,000 members of the CCC brigade who resided in 22 work camps within the confines of the park from 1933 - 1942.

Once I understood what these men in the CCC have done, not a day goes by when I am in the park I don't marvel at the hard work that they have done that we can appreciate 75 years later and for many more years to come. There blood sweat and tears that built this place bring untold happiness and joy that come here in the Great Smoky Mountains national park.

Sugarlands Visitor Center CCC Programs 9-27-08

The activities will include interpretive programs, a panel discussion, and musical entertainment at the Sugarlands Visitor Center with two hikes scheduled in other areas of the Park. The schedule includes:

• 10:00 am: "That Magnificent Army of Youth and Peace: The CCC in the Great Smoky Mountains" by Dr. Harley Jolley
• 11:00 am: "Dollar-a-Day Boys: A Musical Tribute to the CCC" by Bill Jamerson
• 12:30 pm: Dedication of memorial plaque to the CCC
• 1:00 pm: "That Magnificent Army of Youth and Peace" by Dr. Jolley
• 2:00 pm: "CCC Fire Tower Construction in the Smokies" by Charles Maynard
• 3:00 pm: 1 hour panel discussion with former CCC workers, moderated by Erik Kreusch the GSMNP archaeologist

Beside these programs there are 2 moderate guided hikes planed to take you the location of CCC camps in the Great Smoky Mountains national park:

• Friday, September 26 at 10:00 am Kephart Prong trailhead off Newfound Gap Road US441 in North Carolina
• Saturday, September 27, at 1:00 pm Staring at the Sugarlands Visitor Center and hiking up along the Old Sugarlands Trail.

All of the activities commemorating the CCC in the Great Smoky Mountains national park are free and open to anyone.