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Considering the history
of Pigeon Forge, it’s highly appropriate that one of the first
businesses in this East Tennessee town was a furnace and iron forge.
Appropriate because of the burning desire of hardworking visionaries
who forged a town from what once was wilderness. When the pieces
of the Pigeon Forge history puzzle are put together, the picture
is one of a highly successful business community that that city
patriots could never have imagined.
The land that is now Pigeon Forge and the
surrouding area once was used as hunting grounds by the Cherokee
and other eastern tribes of American Indians. A treaty signed in
the late 1700s opened the fertile valley for settlement.
In 1820, Isaac Love established a furnace
and iron forge, the community’s first business. The name Pigeon
Forge is a combination of the iron works and the Little Pigeon River
that flows through the town.
In the 1700s and early 1800s the river’s
banks were lined with beech trees. Beechnuts were a mainstay in
the diet of Passenger Pigeons, which made the river a natural stopping
point for huge flocks of the now-extinct species.
As late as 1907, population records show Pigeon Forge with a mere
154 residents. However, the lure of the Smoky Mountains proved to
be a siren’s song.
By the 1930s, visitors began to trickle into
town, even though the only places one could stay as guests were
private homes. The iron forge was still in operation and farming
was the area’s primary business.
In 1946, a landmark sale of the first parcel
of property smaller than a farm was negotiated. It was during that
time that the main road through town, which ran along the river,
became the hub of the community, complete with two general stores
and two churches.
As growing pains set in, the town voted for
incorporation in 1961. In the early 1980s, with a firmly established
city government and a new Department of Tourism, Pigeon Forge began
to make its voice heard in an expanding tourism market.
New business, primarily related to tourism,
was recruited to the area. Newly created jobs brought an increase
in the permanent population. As of June 1997, the most recent census
indicated 3,975 permanent residents within the Pigeon Forge city
limits.
A little more than a quarter of a century ago, Pigeon Forge was
a small, peaceful community where cornfields were interrupted only
by the occasional business venture and two traffic lights along
Highway 441. That once two-lane, black-topped highway is now six
lanes wide and known as the Parkway.
A major turning point in the city’s quest
for a flourishing tourism industry occurred in 1986 when Dolly Parton
applied her name, energy and talents to Dollywood, a theme park
on the sits of the former Silver Dollar City. The facility was an
immediate hit with visitors and continues to expand annually with
an eye to entertainment for all ages.
Accommodations have undergone a startling
change in Pigeon Forge. From a rather primitive row of stone cabins
along the riverbanks in the early 1930s, the hotel and motel rooms
numbered nearly 7,750 in mid-1999. There are more than 600 cottages,
condos, cabins and villas. Fourteen campgrounds are equipped with
features such as laundry rooms, swimming pools and arcades.
Fast food to family style to upscale dining
are included in the mix of restaurants in Pigeon Forge. Locally
owned and operated restaurants, regional chains and themed restaurants
make up the choices available to hungry travelers.
Entertainment is a mushrooming industry in Pigeon Forge. A dozen
theaters offer a variety of performances, all delivering family-style
entertainment.
Complementing the entertainment of the theaters
are more than 50 family attractions, more than 200 stores in the
city’s six outlet malls and more than 140 craft, gift and specialty
shops.
Just as Pigeon Forge today stands proudly
on its legendary history, it also looks forward to the unfolding
of its future as a lively, constantly growing tourism mecca for
as long as the Smokies entice visitors to the natural beauty found
in their peaks and valleys.
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