Gatlinburg, Tennessee sits right at the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains, and it's been pulling people into those hills for generations. Fog rolls over the ridgelines most mornings, the Little Pigeon River runs right through downtown, and the whole town has a kind of easy, mountain-time rhythm to it, even with the crowds that show up every season.
Long before it was a tourist gateway, this was a tiny Appalachian settlement called White Oak Flats, founded in the early 1800s by farming families along the Little Pigeon River. It took the name Gatlinburg in 1856 after a local merchant, Radford Gatlin, and stayed a quiet mountain community until the Great Smoky Mountains National Park opened in 1934 and changed everything.
Gatlinburg is a gateway more than a destination in itself. Beyond the Parkway's fudge shops, mini golf, and aerial tramway, it opens straight into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited national park in the country, with waterfalls, old-growth forest, and the kind of overlooks that make you stop the car just to stare for a minute. Just down the road, Pigeon Forge and the Dollywood crowd add their own flavor to the whole Smokies experience.
But Gatlinburg is really just one piece of what makes Tennessee special. From the Smokies in the east, to the honky-tonks of Nashville, to the blues and barbecue of Memphis, the state covers a lot of ground, and it's all got that same unmistakable Tennessee pride running through it.
If these hills, or anywhere else in the Volunteer State, feel like home to you, check out everything in our Tennessee Forever collection, built for Smoky Mountain mornings and everywhere else you wear your Tennessee pride.
Got a favorite Tennessee spot we should feature next? Let us know.