Cade Cove Loop Road at Great Smoky Mountains National Park

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Cade Cove Loop Road at Great Smoky Mountains National Park

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Difficulty: Easy
Length: 10.1 miles / 16.3 km
Duration: Half day

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Overview: Cades Cove is a broad, verdant valley surrounded by mountains and is one of the most popular destinations in the Great Smokies. It offers some of the best opportunities for wildlife viewing in the park. Large numbers of white-tailed deer are frequently seen, and sightings of black bear, coyote, ground hog, turkey, raccoon, skunk, and other animals are also possible.

For hundreds of years Cherokee Indians hunted in Cades Cove but archeologists have found no evidence of major settlements. The first Europeans settled in the cove sometime between 1818 and 1821. By 1830 the population of the area had already swelled to 271. Cades Cove offers the widest variety of historic buildings of any area in the national park. Scattered along the loop road are three churches, a working grist mill, barns, log houses, and many other faithfully restored eighteenth and nineteenth century structures.

An 11-mile, one-way loop road circles the cove, offering motorists the opportunity to sightsee at a leisurely pace. Allow at least two to four hours to tour Cades Cove, longer if you walk some of the area’s trails.

A visitor center (open daily), restrooms, and the Cable Mill historic area are located half-way around the loop road.

Numerous trails originate in the cove, including the five-mile roundtrip trail to Abrams Falls and the short Cades Cove Nature Trail. Longer hikes to Thunderhead Mountain and Rocky Top (made famous by the popular song) also begin in the cove.

Several designated backcountry campsites (camping by permit only) are located along trails.

Only bicycle and foot traffic are allowed on the loop road until 10:00 a.m. every Saturday and Wednesday morning from early May until late September. Otherwise the road is open to motor vehicles from sunrise until sunset daily, weather permitting.

Tips: Traffic is heavy during the tourist season in summer and fall and on weekends year-round.

While driving the loop road, please be courteous to other visitors and use pullouts when stopping to enjoy the scenery or view wildlife.

The best time to view wildlife is early morning or early evening. You are almost certain to see deer at this time. You may also see bear, wild turkey, red wolves, and coyotes.

The fall colors in October in Cades Cove are spectacular. But be prepared for heavy crowds, especially on the weekends, in October.

Mid-week is the least crowded time to visit.

Make sure that you will have enough gas to not only take the loop, but get you back to at least Townsend TN where the closest gas station is.

Points of Interest

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Orientation Shelter

Beginning of one way road. The orientation shelter is often staffed with rangers who can answer any questions you might have.

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Sparks Lane Road

This two-way road connect at each end with the loop road (see POI 18). It has been part of the cove road system since the 1940's and was named of Sam, Tom and Dave Sparks which were three brothers who were livestock herders in this area. If you need to leave the cove take this shortcut.

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John Oliver Place

This is one of over 100 historic buildings in the park. John Oliver arrived in the cove prior to 1820 and received title for this land in 1826. It remained in the family until the park was established more than 100 years later.

Large families often lived in small buildings like this . Usually parents, infants and daughters slept on the first floor and sons slept in the loft.

No nails were needed to build the house which used notched corners and gravity holding it together. Open spaces between the logs were filled with mud to seal out wind, snow and rain. The stone chimney is held together with mud mortar.

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Primitive Baptist Church

This church was established in 1827 by some of the earliest Euro-American settlers. A log building stood here until this on replaced it in 1887. The church closed during the Civil War. This official church correspondence explains why "We the Primitive Baptist Church in Blount county in Cades Cove, do show the public why we have not kept up our church meeting. It was on account of the Rebellion and we was Union people and the Rebels was too strong here in Cades Cove. Our preacher was obliged to leave sometimes, and thank God we once more can meet." Some of the early settlers are located in the cemetery.

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Methodist Church

Blacksmith and Carpenter J.D. McCampbell built this church in 115 days for $115. He then served many years as its minister. There weren't as many Methodists in the cove as Baptists, but enough of them got together in the 1820s to establish the church in a log building until this one replaced it in 1902.

The Civil War and Reconstruction divided the church as they did the Methodist congregations. Dissidents formed the Hopewell Methodist Church on the other side of the cove, which is no longer there.

This church has two front doors. They are there because they borrowed the building plans of another church that divided its congregation by gender. Although this church did not do that.

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Hyatt Lane

This road connects to POI 14. It was once part of a Cherokee trail. Use this road as a shortcut to get back through the loop.

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Missionary Baptist Church

A group of Baptists were expelled from the Primitive Baptist Church because they favored missionary work. So they started this church in 1839. The church stopped meeting during the Civil War and resumed without Confederate sympathizing members after the war.

This building dates back to 1915. A Sunday school started in the church in 1898 continued until the church closed in 1944. Daffodils bloom on the right of the church in March & April spelling out "Co. 5427." Members of Civilian Conservation Corps planted them in the 1930s when they were building trails, roads and bridges in the park.

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Rich Mountain Road

You can leave Cades Cove from this road, but it's one way so you cannot enter by this road. It's closed in the winter.

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Cooper Road Trail

Lots of places to park and enjoy the views from here. There is also a hiking trail. Much of the road was part of an Indian trail. Daniel David Foute, a big property owner in the cove, laid it out in the 1830s as part of a route to Maryville.

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Elijah Oliver Place

Elijah Oliver was the son of John Oliver (POI 3), and he was born in the cove in 1824. He moved out of the cove before the Civil War after he was married. After the war he bought back this property.

His original farm was destroyed during the U.S. Civil War by Confederate marauders. The homestead includes a dog-trot cabin, a chicken coop, a corn crib, and a crude stable.

The spring house is one of the most interesting features and is the only one in the cove still intact. Spring houses were built over trickling springs to protect the water supply and as refrigeration for butter, milk, eggs, and other perishables.

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Abrams Falls Trailhead

Abrams Falls.jpg (Lawson Crossroad, Tennessee, United States) Photo

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Cable Mill Historic Area

There is a lot to see and do here, so it's a must stop (as well as the only restrooms in the cove). The visitor center is open every day except Christmas and offers a history exhibit, information, and lots of stuff for sale.

Cable Mill is an operating water powered gristmill and operates from 9am to 5pm from March through November.

As you can see in some of the pictures at times there is a donkey making sorghum, a molasses type of food. You can purchase both the grist mill corn & sorghum in the gift shop of the visitor center.

Musicians Outside Cable Mill Visitor Center Video

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Henry Whitehead Place

Matilda Shields Gregory's husband deserted her and their small son. Her brothers built this small cabin for them. Henry Whitehead's wife died, leaving him a widower with three daughters. Henry and Matilda married (and that's how they became the Whitehead Bunch, :^).

He built for them this larger house (notice the jointed corners). It's considered a transition house, a link between regular log houses and frame houses built of sawed lumber. It was one of three such houses in Cades Cove and is the only one left in the park.

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Hyatt Lane

If you want to see something again on the western end of the cove, turn here and follow this road back to POI 6.

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Dan Lawson Place

This house was built by Dan Lawson in 1856, on land bought from his father-in-law, Peter Cable, whose home stood to the west across the stream. The brick chimney was unusual for the time and locale.

Lawson owned a swath of land starting at the Tennessee-North Carolina line on the mountain crest to the south and coming down the mountain and across the cove and north to the top of Cades Cove Mountain.

The original house of hewn logs was built before sawmills came to the cove, but sawed lumber was used in later additions and maintenance. The small building closest to the house is a granary; the other is a smokehouse.

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Tipton Place

Colonel Hamp Timpton served in the Mexican War, owned property in Cades Cove but lived in Tuckaleechee Cove. He had this house build in the 1870s. His daughters "Miss Lucy" and "Miss Lizzie" were school teachers in the cove.

The McCaulley family rented the place briefly in teh late 1870s before James bought land and built his own home, plus blacksmith and carpentry shops. The blacksmith shop James used here stands nearby in the hollow. The long shed on the opposite side of the house sheltered bee gums. A smokehouse and a woodshed are in the front yard. On the other side of the road is a double-pen corn crib and a cantilever barn.

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Carter Shields Cabin

George Washington Carter Shields suffered a wound in the Civil War that left him crippled. After the war he married and moved to Kansas. he returned to Cades Cove in 1906 and bought this property in 1910. He only lived here for 11 years before he moved again.