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The tale of how Gatlinburg, Tennessee came to be the thriving city that it is
today actually starts in Edgefield, South Carolina. In the 1790's, the widow,
Jane Huskie Oglesby, and her seven children decided to make their new home in
the "far west". The extended family went as far west as the valley at the foot
of Mt. Le Conte, Tennessee.
The area that the Oglesby family (who later
changed their name to Ogle) settled became known as White Oaks Flats. At first,
White Oaks Flats was wild to the core; it had never been settled before and bore
trees that had accumulated into thriving forests. In between fighting the local
American Indian tribes, the Creeks and the Cherokees, and common accidents; they
managed to tame the valley and came to call it "home."
The next big
surge of people who came to settle in White Oaks Flats were primarily North
Carolinians. A lot of these new settlers were men who had fought in the
Revolutionary War and had been given fifty-acre land grants in Tennessee by the
state of North Carolina.
The first community structure built in the
small, but growing, community was the church. Though the citizens of White Oaks
Flats were primarily Presbyterian, Baptist missionaries convinced the town to
build a Baptist church first; so the White Oaks Baptist Church was constructed
in 1835. Soon after the church was built, the schoolhouse was assembled. The
first free school in the area was completed in 1867. The school was only open
for two-three months a year.
Though it was soon a prosperous community,
communication beyond the valley was restricted because of the geographical
boundaries of the Appalachians. In 1860 an official post office was located in
White Oak Flats, the new postmaster was to be Richard Reagan. Reagan located his
office in the town's prosperous mercantile, owned by Radford Gatlin. In
appreciation for Gatlin's offer of office space, he renamed the office
Gatlinburg. Soon the name spread to become the appellation of the mercantile,
and soon after the town. In the late 1800's, White Oak Flats became obselete;
replaced indefinitely by Gatlinburg.
Thought to be the kinsman of the
inventor of the Gatlin gun, Radford Gatlin became a true entrepreneur, making
the best of his keenly business-like personality. His shrewdness did not pursue
him outside of the store, however, as he enjoyed speaking his mind. He was very
straightforward in his advocacy of the Confederate cause, and often spoke out
about his political views. It was this unabashed feeling that earned him a
severe beating by a group of masked men and was ordered to leave the community
immediately. Though forced to leave in 1860, a poor widowed man, the town still
bears his name today.
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