Friday, March 19, 2010

A Step Back In Time

The Great Smokey Mountains

Just outside Cherokee, NC is a wonderful visitor center as you enter the Smokey Mountain National Park. If you find yourself passing into the park, take time out to visit the Oconaluftee Visitor Center and Mountain Farm Museum.Visitors can explore a log farmhouse, barn, apple house, springhouse, and a working blacksmith shop to get a sense of how families may have lived 100 years ago.

Mountain Farm Museum

The farm buildings, most dating around 1900, were moved from their original locations throughout the Great Smoky Mountain National Park to create this open-air museum.

Corn Field

Old Equipment

Split-rail fences line much of the property. Constructed out of timber logs, split-rail fences were typically used for agricultural or decorative fencing. These were very  simple in their construction, and could be easily assembled with few tools even on hard or rocky ground. They could even be partially or wholly disassembled if the fence was needed to be moved or if the wood became more useful for other purposes.


Shake Roof

A shake is a wooden shingle that is made from split logs. When these are used for covering the top of a house, the result is a shake roof. In North America shakes are typically made from Western Red Cedar.

Out Building

Barn Door (Window)

Davis House

The Davis House is a rare chance to view a log house built from chestnut wood before the chestnut blight decimated the American Chestnut in our forests during the 1930s and early 1940s.

Oconaluftee Visitor Center and The Farm Museum is free. Open All Year:
Open every day except Christmas Day

January - April    8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. May    8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.June - August    8:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
September - October    8:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
November - December    8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.


Location
Inside the Smokey Mountain National Park, 2 miles north of Cherokee, NC, on US-441.

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