Near the Rich Mountain Road junction — for a century, one of the only ways over the mountains into this valley. Rich Mountain Road is a narrow, one-way gravel exit today; check conditions and clearance before taking it.
As you roll along this stretch, look toward the mountains on your right, because somewhere up that slope is the answer to a question that shaped everything about Cades Cove: how on earth did anybody get in and out of here?
For most of its history, this valley was gloriously, punishingly remote. There was no easy road. The main way in ran up and over the shoulder of Rich Mountain, dropping down the far side toward Tuckaleechee Cove and the town of Townsend, about twelve miles off. And that route has three lives stacked on top of each other. First it was a Cherokee trail — the footpath the native people used for generations. Then, in the 1830s, the settlers widened it into a rough wagon road. And in the 1920s, the state of Tennessee finally graded a proper road over it — the Rich Mountain Road that still climbs out of the cove today, one-way and gravel.
There was a second way out too, on the far side of the loop: Parson Branch Road, a one-way track completed back in 1838 that ran south toward the Little Tennessee River, so cove families could haul goods to trade. Two hard mountain roads and a lot of muscle — that was your connection to the outside world.
Then the park changed all of it. When Great Smoky Mountains National Park came in the 1930s, the state built Laurel Creek Road — the smooth, easy road you drove in on — and today that's the only entrance to the cove. So here's the irony: getting to Cades Cove has never been easier than it is right now, in this exact moment, for you, a tourist. For the people who actually lived here, it was the end of the world at the end of a wagon track. Keep that in mind at every cabin. These were not folks who could run to town.
Photo: P. Hughes · CC BY-SA 4.0
