Mountain men with imagination and a sense of humor named the peaks and creeks, ridges and branches, gaps and coves of the Great Smokies. The names they left upon the map tell a story of the life and times of a virgin region, a rough country, a land of make-do or do-without. They are one of the few surviving links with the strong, resourceful, tough-fibered men who got this country started. Many of the names are unlovely, but they are original and they are honest.
Until 75 years ago no map showed accurately the features of the names of this rugged country. The settlements, such as they were extended in a fringe of scattered cabins along the southern border of the Smokies and along the northern border in Tennessee.
The great mass of the Smokies was quite uninhabited, and since it has become a national park even those few settlers who called it home have moved out, leaving it to the bear, the fox, the coon, the possum, the wildcat and the park rangers. Yet, even in those days, every creek and branch and ridge and cove had a name, although known only to a few. And the names survived because of wandering hunters or fishermen or herdsmen who came into the high ranges in spring and fall to look after their half wild cattle and razorbacks.
Such names as Ripshin and the Hurricane, the Devil’s Den and Huggin’s Hell, the Defeat and Desolation branches of Bone Valley, the Rough Arm and Blowdown, Tear Breeches and Long Hungry Ridge, The Sawteeth and the Jumpoff, Bent Arm and Pullback Ridge. They are vividly descriptive names, whimsical names.
They express the raw virility of the backwoodsman, his literal-mindedness, his whimsical humor that makes a sport of privation and hardship. They are names that, in a word or two, picture the features of a place, celebrates some incident of the rough pioneer life or recall some person who one time was somehow identified with a given place.
On the watershed of Twentymile and Eagle creeks, north of Fontana Dam, are Judy Branch and Genes Camp Branch, Big Tommy and Little Tommy, the Shuckstack, Augerhole Gap and Axe Ridge, Bearpen, Big Swag Ridge, Pawpaw and Soapstone.
Up on Hazel Creek there is Blockhouse, which derived its name because corn likker was made there; Thunderhead Mountain, Brier Know, Indian Camp, Wooly Ridge, the Chestnut Rock, Pullback Ridge and Gunlock Ridge. Up Bone Valley, beyond Locust Gap, is Long Big Flats Ridge then Main long Big Flats Branch, beyond which has a head stream, is the Fur Long Big Flats Branch. Crossing the high Welch Divide, by way of High Rocks and Mount Glory, to the east of Hazel Creek, and trailing down from Bear Wallow Bald is Forney Creek. The first branch to the left up Forney Creek is Ad Valorem.
It is a safe bet that no mountaineer christened a trout stream with that reminder of customhouses, and it is only those in recent years to honor a scientist or other prominent person.
Along the crest of the Smokies, northeast of Newfound Gap, is a section known as The Sawteeth, because the spine resembles the teeth of a saw. And nearby are Curry He Mountain and Curry She Mountain.
On the waters of Deep Creek, south of Fontana and the mountains from which they spring, are some peculiar names. Easy Ridge is a satiric term if you have ever tried to negotiate it with a pack on your back. Nick’s Nest refers to Old Nick and Keg Drive was a favorite spot for bear-driving. A gap at the head of Bee-tree Creek is known as Turkey-fly-up, names by the Indians because turkeys were always to be found there.
Some of the names on Bradley Creek are self explanatory such as Gold-mine Branch, Washout and Bear Wallow. Tow String gets it odd designation from the industry of an old woman who used to live there and made tow string for the settlers. Breackneck Ridge, Bear-foot, Bear Wallow, and Axe Ridge are obvious enough. Turkey Pen on Straight Fork was not an enclosure for keeping tame turkeys but a trap to catch wild ones. Then there is Pretty Hollow Gap and Pretty Hollow Creek which flows into the Rough Fork of Cataloochee.
Scattered across the Smokies are others such as Saddle Tree Gap, Horseshoe Ridge, Sunup Knob, Eagles Rocks, Sheep Wallow Knob, Long Bunk, Whistling Gap, Bee Knob, Horsetrough Ridge, Elbow Ridge, Fern Knob, Firescald Ridge, Gunna Creek, Roughhew Ridge, and Sally Sam Branch.
And now we come to Charlie’s Bunion, which is on the Appalachian Trail northeast of Newfound Gap, between the Jumpoff and the Sawteeth. Back in 1929 when George Masa, the little Japanese photographer, was trampling over the Smokies and making pictures the like of which no photographer ever made of this wilderness, he was being guided by Charlie Conner. Standing on the Sawteeth, Charlie pointed out a 5,375-foot peak to Masa and said: “That looks just like a bunion on Old Smoky’s foot.” It struck the fancy of the mountaineers and became Charlie’s Bunion. You’ll find it on the map, sitting there northeast of Mt. Kephart, which was named for the man they called the Apostle of the Great Smokies.