It wasn't Mr. Peabody's Coal Train
This past weekend the wife and I visited Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, Tennessee on a mini-vacation. As far as I'm concerned we might as well have stayed home. Oh, the food was good, the people nice, and (when you could get away from the masses of people) the weather decent even though it rained 4" over the course of our visit. What really killed it for me is the massive development in the area. We're not talking just the many new roads, rental cabin developments off the "strip" or the conversion of the area from I-40 to the Great Smokies National Park borders into one continuous megalopolis. What I'm talking about is the wholesale reforming of the terrain with a multitude of hills leveled, removed, sliced & diced with huge concrete retaining walls. I'm talking about the number of these hills with tops sliced off and slid to one side or all around as fill to provide great level areas for parking lots and what all.
We've been going to this area together since we were married and my wife and her parents for decades before that. I've no doubt that we've helped contribute the cash incentive for these "improvements". It was once a gorgeous place. After leaving Bristol to the north and Knoxville to the west it was a little bit of heaven. Now, it is nothing more than another commercial area but with a twist. These folks, many natives included, have a complete disregard for their natural heritage and are removing what really made the place different, the innumerable hills and hollows. No more neat turns and tucked away treasures of life, just a strip hardly any different from Branson, MO's strip and approaching Las Vegas in gaudy.
It wasn't Mr. Peabody's coal train that carried off Sevier County, it was plain old greed.
Labels: Culture
