During the 18th century and 19th century, as early settlers were exploring the American frontier, they cleared land and erected log structures with the felled trees. Soldiers used log cabins to house them temporarily during the Revolutionary War. As pioneers settled the Carolinas, they used logs to build all the structures necessary for a community, including "schools, churches, gristmills, barns, corncribs and a variety of outbuildings," according to the Old House Journal website.
Almost 40 miles from Cherokee, in western North Carolina and within the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, visitors will find the Cataloochee Valley. Surrounded by rugged mountains with 6,000-foot peaks,it's a challenging drive to get there, but this remote valley was once a large, busy settlement. Cataloochee is a scenic area, populated with the elk that were reintroduced to the park in 2001. Visitors can take a self-guided auto tour to learn about the history of the area by picking up a guide in a roadside box. While touring, visitors will see the historic log cabin school, churches and a barn, along with several homes in the valley. A number of historic buildings are located on the road, and you can reach an additional four buildings by walking a couple of miles down the Little Cataloochee Trail. The self-guiding auto tour booklet provides histories of each historic log structure. In addition, visitors can observe demonstrations of pioneer life by interpreters dressed in appropriate historic costumes, as well as farm animals typical of the period.
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Cataloochee Valley
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
National Park Rd.
Cataloochee, NC 28785
nps.gov/grsm
Whippoorwill Academy & Village, in Caldwell County in Western North Carolina, includes a collection of reconstructed 19th century log buildings for visitors to tour to learn about early pioneer life. The village includes the Tom Dula Art Museum, housed in the historic log cabin school, that displays a collection of paintings and drawings by retired teacher Edith Carter to commemorate the legend of Tom Dula. Dula is immortalized in song as Tom Dooley in "The Ballad of Tom Dooley." Edith Carter's father attended school in this log cabin building more than 100 years ago. Besides the one-room log cabin "Whippoorwill Academy," the Village includes a general store, a Daniel Boone-replica cabin, chapel, a jailhouse, weaving room, blacksmith shop and tavern. Windsong Canoes provide self-guided canoe rentals on the historic Yadkin River. On-site "residents" of the Village include cattle, four llamas and farm dogs. The Village holds a Daniel Boone Day on the second Saturday of each May, a festival that offers self-guided tours of the Village, along with music, arts and crafts, food, hayrides, a Tom Dooley re-enactment, cloggers and a Southern Woman Skillet Toss contest. In December, the Village holds a Christmas open house. Admission is free for tours, but donations are accepted. With the mountains as the ideal romantic backdrop, weddings at the chapel are spectacular; a small fee is charged for weddings.
Whippoorwill Academy & Village
11929 Highway 268 West
Ferguson, NC 28624
336-973-3237
explorewilkes.com
ncartstrails.org/happyvalley
The Cowan Museum is housed in the restored 1848 Kelly-Farrior home in Duplin County, and demonstrates the historic pioneer heritage of rural North Carolina. The museum is filled with a collection of rare early farm and woodworking tools and household utensils from the late 18th century and early 19th century. On the museum grounds, visitors can discover history in a hands-on experience, according to the Cowan Museum website, by exploring a restored log tobacco barn, a one-room log schoolhouse, a furnished log cabin and a blacksmith shop. Visitors to the Cowan Museum will get to see and hold long-forgotten kitchen utensils such as a "sugar nipper." Other treasures on-site include a cart that was used to transport stones for the building of the Washington Monument and a large rock collection.
Cowan Museum
411 S. Main St.
Kenansville, NC 28349
910-296-2149
cowanmuseum.com
