The Necessity for Protecting These Mountain Forests : The Appalachian National Park Association and the Fight for a Southern Appalachian Forest Reserve

This paper will focus on the unsuccessful efforts of the Appalachian National Park Association on the local and national scale at the turn of the 20th century as precedent setting for the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1934. Although any ‘Appalachianophile’ today understands the historic significance of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, many may be surprised to know that the efforts to create such a park began with the Appalachian National Park Association, formally founded in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1899. Even though the group was largely unsuccessful in its initial goals and efforts to create a national forest reserve, they set a precedent at both the national and local level that would lead to the creation of a national park in the Great Smoky Mountains and elsewhere in Appalachia during the 1920s and the 1930s. Through a careful reading of Congressional documents and speeches, this paper will look specifically at how this organization challenged conventional notions of government in an attempt to create a national forest reserve of an unprecedented scale east of the Mississippi River