Daisy Town

Daisy Town is a preserved cluster of summer cabins along Jakes Creek in Elkmont, built on land once used as a logging camp. It is a worthwhile easy stop if historic buildings interest you: take a self-guided walk and look inside the restored cabins. The park's mobile app has a Daisy Town tour. A quick lap can feel repetitive, but the interiors give the place its point. Reach it from Little River Road; the visitor area sits between Jakes Creek trailhead parking and the Appalachian Clubhouse. Restrooms are seasonal, so do not count on them year-round. No food service is listed here, so plan meals elsewhere.

W.B. Townsend, owner of Little River Lumber Company and a member of the Appalachian Club, leased logging land for a hunting and fishing camp. Knoxville families then built vacation homes along Jakes Creek. Almost 80 cabins went up between 1910 and 1935. Before 1925, families made the three-hour trip on a train run by Little River Lumber Company. After logging ended and the tracks were removed, they drove in. The summer season usually ran from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and some families brought what they needed for the whole stay.

Some cabin families brought Black women to work as domestic servants. They often had separate social lives and sometimes stayed in separate homes behind the main cabins. That divide belongs in the story of this summer community, alongside the comfort of the houses.

Daisy Town is one of three club areas in the wider Elkmont Historic District. The district's 18 preserved structures and two cemeteries extend beyond Daisy Town, so the broader Elkmont story is larger than this cabin area. The Appalachian Clubhouse is a 3,000-square-foot event venue available by reservation. This part of Elkmont was the first property acquired to create Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and many cabin owners supported the effort to establish the park.

The wooded setting, covered porches, and stone chimneys are the details that make these cabins read as a summer settlement. For a photo, frame several cabins together with the trees still around them; a single facade misses the way the homes sit among one another.