Displaying items by tag: chuck sams

Fontana Resort, once the site of a Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps camp and now home to a comfortable, low-key lodging destination, has numerous relics and mementos from nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Included among them is this collection of badges indicating landmarks and completion of popular trails throughout the park. Visitors to areas close to the Smokies, such as Fontana Village, bring in an estimated $3 billion each year.  Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press

Cash-rich tourists flock to Smokies area; whether they set foot in the national park is a different story

Katie Liming is a public information officer at Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

GATLINBURG — A new National Park Service report shows that 13.3 million visitors to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2023 spent $2.2 billion in communities near the park. That spending supported 33,748 jobs in the local area and had a cumulative benefit to the local economy of $3.4 billion. (In 2020, albeit a year of peak COVID-19, that amount was $2 billion).

“People come to Great Smoky Mountains National Park to enjoy the scenic beauty and end up supporting local economies along the way,” said Superintendent Cassius Cash. “We’re proud to care for a national park that provides incredible opportunities for recreation but also creates jobs and positively contributes to local economies.” 

Anne Child removes invasive exotic plants during a recent Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning event to mark National Public Lands Day at TVA’s Worthington Cemetery in Oak Ridge. Ben Pounds/Hellbender Press

Citizens pay it back on Public Lands Day in Oak Ridge, Smokies and beyond

OAK RIDGE — Rain drizzled as volunteers dug and clipped plants in woods around an old cemetery turned science lab.

It was a Public Lands Day event at Tennessee Valley Authority Worthington Cemetery Ecological Study area in Oak Ridge near Melton Hill Lake. Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning, an environmental organization based in Oak Ridge, led the Sept. 24 work party in support of American public lands.

Other events were held throughout the country to mark the date (including Great Smoky Mountains National Park), which has proven itself to be the most productive day of the year for citizen sweat equity in public lands.

GATLINBURG — The director of the National Park Service is expected in Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Saturday to celebrate National Public Lands Day.

Director Chuck Sams plans to make some remarks in appreciation for the volunteers who help backstop national park maintenance costs before citizens fan out for various tasks across the park. Sams is the first Native American to head the park service, and he will be joined by Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Chief Richard G. Sneed.