Early 1800s
In the early 1800s one of the paths became a crude roadway used to access the extremely remote settlement of Cades Cove via Happy Valley and Rabbit Creek. In 1830 Joshua Parson who lived near the Little Tennessee and Abrams Creek is credited with improving the Parsons Turnpike Toll Gate Road which more or less follows present day US 129 along the Little Tennessee.
Another route was improved in 1838 with Russell Gregory heading the project that lead from Forge Creek near Cades Cove following Parson Branch to the turnpike (US 129). Today this 8-mile gravel road still exhibits some of the excitement of the early days with 19 water fords. But note that the Parsons Branch Road is “one-way” out of Cades Cove to the Dragon. This route suffered severe damage in the floods of 2002 and was closed for several years as it underwent extensive repairs. It has been closed several times due to flooding. The latest closure in 2015 was due to the many dead hemlock trees that could potentially fall onto passerbys. The dying hemlocks of Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest were dynamited recently for public safety.
In the 1840s Dr. Isaac Anderson was assigned the task of building a toll road between Knoxville and the Little Tennessee River valley in North Carolina. He enlisted the help of Cherokee Indians in laying-out the route and clearing it. Each Indian was paid with one yard of calico for each day worked. This was in the area of Bote Mountain east of Cades Cove. This road was only completed on the Tennessee side and soon fell into disrepair when North Carolina failed to connect to it. Cades Cove: The Life and Death of a Southern Appalachian Community, Durwood Dunn.
The Swiss-American geographer Arnold Henry Guyot explored the mountains of western North Carolina in the 1850s. He wrote that the western slopes were used by "Tennesseans for grazing cattle. Numerous paths, therefore ran up the western slopes, and along the dividing ridge. But the eastern slope is still a wilderness, little frequented. Here the Little Tennessee cuts that high chain by a deep widening chasm, in which no room is left for a road on its immediate banks the mountains near by rising to 3,000 ft. above it, and upwards; the point where it leaves the mountains being scarcely 900 ft. above the level of the sea."
There were a number of more treacherous paths connecting Cades Cove to North Carolina. One family migrated south along Forge Creek crossing the mountains at Ekaneetlee Gap (3,800 feet elevation) and descending into North Carolina settling in Possum Hollow on Hazel Creek. Another crude path followed Forge Creek to the south passing through Rich Gap (4,600 feet elevation) just to the east of Gregory Bald and descending along Twentymile Creek.
There were many conflicts between the Cherokee and white settlers who infringed upon their world in these early years. Both sides took lives in needless disputes and quarrels. This undeclared warfare resulted in one of the saddest events in our early American history – the Trail of Tears relocation of the Cherokee to Oklahoma. Many Native Americans refused to assemble and leave the only land they had ever known. The Dragon was one of the remote paths they used to evade the Army patrols sent to capture them.