Newfound Gap, at 5,046 feet, is the lowest drivable pass through the park and the top of Newfound Gap Road, where the Tennessee and North Carolina line and the Appalachian Trail cross. The stone Rockefeller Memorial sits astride the state line and honors Laura Spelman Rockefeller, whose son's five million dollar gift completed the park's land purchases. President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the park from the memorial on September 2, 1940, before more than ten thousand people. The memorial's tablet records that half the park was given by the people and states and half in her memory. The lot has parking, seasonal restrooms and a parking-tag machine. Kuwohi Road branches off a few hundred yards toward Cherokee, and visitors who stop hear Boone's tale of George Masa.
Two choices here. The Newfound Gap lot is just ahead on your left. Pull in and stay a minute, and Boone has a tale for anyone who parks. Same as before. Tap play before you walk away, and stay close till he starts. Just past the lot, on the right, Kuwohi Road climbs to the highest point in Tennessee, the peak older maps call Clingmans Dome. That's seven miles of road each way plus about an hour on foot, on a steep paved path, open April through late November, weather permitting. The tour goes quiet up there and picks up back on this road, so follow the signs toward Cherokee coming down. Five thousand and forty-six feet. This is the top of the road, about thirty-six hundred feet above Sugarlands. Geographer Arnold Guyot called this pass the New Gap. Walk over to the stone terrace, put one foot in Tennessee and one in North Carolina, and you're standing the way the speakers stood on Labor Day, nineteen forty. That terrace is the memorial to Laura Spelman Rockefeller, whose son gave the final five million dollars for land. From it, President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the park to a crowd of ten thousand and thirty-four. Most of his speech was about the danger from abroad. He hoped that a hundred years on, in twenty forty, the park would still belong to the people of a free nation. When you're ready, turn left out of the lot, toward Cherokee, downhill most of the way, with the Oconaluftee Valley Overlook first, on your right. If you've parked, Boone's next.
Photo: National Park Service · Public domain