Creating the Land of the Sky

The Vanderbilt mansion in Biltmore, North Carolina, is among the most famous tourist sites in the United States, and it attracts visitors from around the world. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a large portion of which is located in western North Carolina, is by far the most visited park in the National Park system. Its roughly 10 million annual visitors are twice as many as those of its nearest competitor, the Grand Canyon. Richard D. Starnes recounts how western North Carolina became one of the most prominent tourist regions in the country. There is a long history to be told because the tourist industry had its origins before the Civil War, when planters made seasonal migrations to the foothills. The Civil War interrupted the trade, but afterward tourism became an increasingly important component of the New South in that region. In the late nineteenth century, health tourism gave way to pleasure travel, and railroads were built into the area. In the early twentieth century, the industry benefited from the religious camps and assemblies that were established. The collapse of the land and housing boom in Florida in the late 1920s dealt the industry a blow, as did the Great Depression and World War II, but it revived strongly after the war. In the postwar period, there was not only growth but also a shift from serving the wealthy elite to serving much larger numbers of middle-income tourists making their way to the area by automobile

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