Additional information
by Elizabeth Powers (Author), Mark Hannah (Author), Jim Casada (Introduction by)
There is a buzz of excitement in Cataloochee these days. Visitors come into this section of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park by the thousands to view the majestic elk and other wildlife roaming the valley. However, there were no elk in Cataloochee for almost 200 years. European settlers arrived in North Carolina in 1587 and the Eastern Elk was hunted to extinction in the 1790s. Fortunately, elk were successfully reintroduced (from Kentucky and Canada) into Cataloochee in 2001 and appear to be on a path to success.
But what about the people? What about the Cataloochans who arrived after the elk? The valley has always been difficult to access and the people who came to the valley and settled it in the 1800s were made of sterner stuff than most. What happened to this settlement in the beautiful, remote Cataloochee Valley, which at one time boasted over 1200 residents and was the largest settlement in the Smokies?
This is their story ... as told by them.
Author Biography
Elizabeth Dixon Powers was a writer, conservator, and Asheville native whose work reflected a deep connection to the Southern Appalachian landscape. Educated at Wellesley College and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, she published essays including "Cataloochee--A Sense of Place" and authored several unpublished novels. She lived in both South Carolina's Lowcountry and Western North Carolina, where she passed away in 2007.
Mark E. Hannah was born in the Cataloochee Valley in 1906. He married Verda Messer and they raised a family of seven children in their beloved Cataloochee. Mark Hannah was the perfect choice to return to Cataloochee as a ranger after the park was created, to protect the land he loved, and to be a voice of reason to all who still cherished the valley as much as he did.
