If nature and eerie things are up your alley, you need to plan a visit to this Smoky Mountain ghost town!

Ghost Towns

We've all heard the phrase "This place is a ghost town" but what actually makes a place a ghost town?  A "ghost town" doesn't mean haunted by ghosts (although they're usually a little spooky, and I can't guarantee they're ghost-free), it means a once thriving place that sits empty. Britannica explains:

Ghost town, town that was once an active community but has since been abandoned by all or nearly all of its residents. Ghost towns are found on every continent.

Did you know that there is a ghost town within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that you can visit?

The Elkmont Ghost Town

Inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the ghost town of a once-thriving community. According to Pigeon Forge, throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, Elkmont was a logging community complete with a school, church, railroad line, homes, and even a hotel.

When the area became a part of the National Park in 1934 people were asked to sell their homes to the National Park Service for full price, or could receive a lifetime lease that would expire in 1992.  Pigeon Forge explains what happened next:

After the park service purchased the land and the leases expired, over 70 buildings stood in the park with nobody to maintain them. They began to deteriorate and turned into what is known as the "Elkmont Ghost Town" in the Smoky Mountains. The eerie feeling of exploring the remains of a once lively logging town is a unique experience that is hard to match in the mountains.

The National Park has demolished many of the buildings from this time, but 19 still remain.  Pigeon Forge says that the plan is for these 19 structures to eventually be restored.  If you'd like to learn more about the history of the Elkmont ghost town or get directions on how to get there, you can see the full article from Pigeon Forge, here.  

See Photos of the Elkmont Ghost Town

A few years ago my husband and I spent a few days in Gatlinburg, and when looking up things to do we found a ghost town just inside the National Park.   Of course, we had to go check it out, and it was worth the trip! You can see several photos of the ghost town that I took on our trip below!