Good Ol’ Rocky Top welcomes tourists

Tennessee’s Rocky Top Trail leads back in time to the state’s founding. John Sevier is sometimes called the “Father of Tennessee” for his instrumental role in shaping Tennessee’s statehood. 

Born in Virginia in 1745, Sevier came to Tennessee when he was just 26 years old with his wife and nine children in tow. He was a Revolutionary War hero, a major landowner and a champion of Western expansion. He went on to spend three terms as governor of Tennessee, and was later elected to the Tennessee State Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. Major accomplishments under his leadership included new treaties with Native Americans and improved roads for wagons. Sevier is also famous as a bitter rival of Andrew Jackson; the two nearly dueled in downtown Knoxville in 1803. 

Sevier County and the town of Sevierville are named after the leader. His property and frontier dwellings are at Marble Springs in Knoxville, but visit the Sevier County Heritage Museum, located in a former post office for local history, for exhibits of Woodland Indian artifacts to early settlers and farm implements they used. The museum’s collection also includes educational exhibits and tributes to local veterans from the Civil War through Korea. 

For more information, call 423.453.4058 or visit tntrailsandbyways.com and explore the Great Smoky Mountains region’s Rocky Top Trail.