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KNOXVILLE Tenn. – On December 7, 2020, Dusty William Oliver, 41, and Richard Graham, 49, both from Blaine, were sentenced by the Honorable Judge Thomas A. Varlan, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville, for raping two men in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP).Oliver and Graham pleaded guilty to an indictment charging them with two counts of aggravated sexual abuse in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2241(a) and 2. Oliver was sentenced to 300 months in prison, followed by 15 years’ supervised release. Graham was sentenced to 230 months in prison,...

Great Smoky Mountains National Park officials report that the victim of the black bear attack on Sunday afternoon was Glenda Ann Bradley, 50, from Cosby, TN. Bradley was an elementary school teacher at Jones Cove Elementary. Her companion is her former husband, Ralph Hill, 52, also a resident of Cosby. The attack occurred between 2 p.m.-3 p.m. in the backcountry at the intersection of Little River and Goshen Prong Trails about 2.5 miles from the Little River trailhead where the couple parked their car. The couple entered the Park around noon. Hill left Bradley to fish on an island on...

The remains of a home and cars smolder after a wildfire November 29, 2016 in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Thousands of people have been evacuated from the area and over 100 houses and businesses were damaged or destroyed after drought conditions helped the fire spread through the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. (Photo by Brian Blanco/Getty Images) With more than 14,000 people evacuated from the Gatlinburg, Tennessee area and more than 400 homes and businesses damaged or destroyed, the Sevier county wildfire may have been the largest in Tennessee in the last 100 years. But what caused the fire? Experts...

A roaring 500-acre fire is threatening structures in downtown Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where officials have ordered mandatory evacuations. Roads near Great Smoky Mountains National Park are closed, as firefighters battle the flames and gusty winds. There have been no fatalities so far, but three burn victims are in critical condition at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, the Tennessean reported. Officials suspect arson in the fire, which started over the weekend. More than 100 structures have been destroyed by the massive fire, including the home of Gatlinburg Mayor Mike Werner.

GATLINBURG — More than 150 homes and businesses lay in smoking ruins Tuesday after wildfire flames whipped by high-speed winds raged overnight through town and displaced more than 14,000 residents, officials estimated. "This is a fire for the history books," Gatlinburg Fire Chief Greg Miller said at a morning news conference. "The likes of this has never been seen here. But the worst is definitely over with." More than 200 firefighters from across the state remain on the way to help douse the wildfires, and the Tennessee Army National Guard plans to dump water onto the flames from a helicopter,...

I found this doing something else and didn't find it posted yetAnother source had posted a report around 11 AM Eastern "Wildfires in Tennessee damaged hundreds of buildings overnight, forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes as hundreds of firefighters battled the blazes and smoke that blanketed the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains." "A statement released Tuesday morning by the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said that the towns of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, as well as other parts of Sevier County, in the eastern part of the state, had been evacuated." "The agency said it was likely that...

Ravaged by months of drought, huge swaths of the southeast United States are on fire, but you wouldn’t know it judging by national media coverage.A total of six states in the southeast (Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi) are currently suffering from “exceptional drought,” a category reserved for the most severe drought conditions, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center. The majority of land in four states (Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia) are facing “extreme drought,” the second most severe level.(snip)But because it’s not happening in New York or D.C. or Los Angeles, it doesn’t really count...

GATLINBURG — Firefighters across the state scrambled to douse the wildfires raging through East Tennessee Tuesday morning, and the Tennessee National Guard made plans to dump water onto the flames from a helicopter. Emergency responders have struggled to make a dent into the fires that have devastated Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and surrounding areas in Sevier County since high winds helped the flames spread Monday evening Article continues, "Hillbilly Golf, major hotels, a good portion of Regan Drive and countless other businesses and homes were destroyed in the blaze that had firefighters working throughout the night. "The center of Gatlinburg looks...

Terrified guests are trapped inside a burning Hilton hotel as a huge wildfire engulfs the Tennessee resort towns of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Dollywood theme park has been evacuated as thousands of tourists and residents fled the Great Smoky Mountains amidst reports of cars bursting into flames, dozens of homes being engulfed by fire, and the sky turning brown with smoke and flames.  Motorists clogged the roads after the Gatlinburg Fire Department ordered the mandatory evacuation of the town at just after 6pm on Monday, as strong wind conditions fanned the flames making the fire increasingly unpredictable and dangerous.

GATLINBURG, TN (WSMV) - One of Tennessee’s most popular tourist destinations is being evacuated due to wildfires. Downtown Gatlinburg and numerous area neighborhoods, including the southern part of Pigeon Forge, are under a mandatory evacuation. The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency has declared a level three state of emergency for the affected areas. TEMA says 30 structures are currently on fire in Gatlinburg, including a 16-story hotel. The Tennessee National Guard will be deployed to Sevier County to assist with clearing and removing debris. Officials said there are no reports of fatalities at this time. At least one person suffered a...

The rise of the Appalachian Mountains seems to have triggered an ice age 450 million years ago by sucking CO2 from the atmosphere. Researchers report evidence that minerals from the mountain range washed into the oceans just before the cold snap, carrying atmospheric carbon dioxide with them. The result clarifies a long standing paradox in the historical relationship between CO2 and climate, experts say. At the start of the so-called Ordovician ice age, about 450 million years ago, the planet went from a state of greenhouse warmth to one of glacial cold, culminating in mass extinctions of ocean life. This...

Folks who live in the Great Smoky Mountains have just about reached their breaking point with the federal government. “It’s almost like they are pushing to see how far they can push before the American people say enough is enough,” said Ed Mitchell, the mayor of Blount County, Tenn. “We were founded on a declaration of independence. And they are about to push the people to the line again.” Nearly a third of Blount County is inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. So when the federal government shut down the park, it also shut down one of the area’s...

TwitchyTeam ✔@TwitchyTeam 'Catch us if you can': Gettysburg visitors defy #SpiteHouse cones and Barrycades [pics] http://bit.ly/16uZYVr

Tennesseans are proud of their frontier heritage and have preserved quite a few vintage log cabins and farm buildings. After the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established in the 1930s, mountain communities were displaced but some of their habitations were preserved. This article presents an archive of monochrome photographs which documented these historic structures.

Cades Cove is a community frozen in time. Some of the log cabins and other buildings in Cades Cove were preserved and restored. These log and timber buildings now make Cades Cove a major draw in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. {30 vintage photographs}

The Great Smoky Mountains aren't so great after all, according to National Geographic Traveler magazine. The online version of the publication's sixth annual rating of 133 worldwide travel destinations characterized the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as "a national treasure surrounded by a bathtub ring of ugly, unplanned development."

What's making the mini crop circles? Snails? Millipedes? A mysterious circular pattern on moss-covered logs has scientists scratching their heads. Last winter, researchers in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park discovered the symmetrical bull's-eye pattern on patches of liverwort (a close relative of moss) growing on pine trees that had died and fallen on the ground. At this point, biologists aren't sure what causes the circles. Some have suggested snails, while others have speculated millipedes. "Immediately, we thought of snails," said Keith Langdon, chief biologist with the Smokies. "But snails graze in a zigzag pattern. We can't find records of...

We went over the mountains last weekend to attend the Smoky Mountain Storytelling Festival. Before I describe that, what do you think it was? Do you imagine a bunch of good ol’ boys in bib overalls, swapping outrageous fish tales? No such thing. It was far more interesting than that. When we drive to D.C., we go through Tennessee. Every trip, we’d pass a sign for the National Storytelling Center in Jonesboro. Finally, we took that exit, and spent an hour talking with the lady in charge of the center, in the beautifully-restored downtown of Tennessee’s oldest city. We decided...