Graphic below: Appalachian Trail, from Maine to Georgia
This is the strongest evidence we have that the mountains were termed Appalachian in some Indian language. How reliable is this derivation? Le Moyne and the other French explorers under Ribaut and Laudonniere were no doubt familiar with the narratives of the Narvaez and De Soto expeditions and their stories of the wealthy province of Apalache. The only maps available at the time placed Apalache or Apalchen in the vicinity of the mountains. The Huguenots could have been expected to ask Indians about gold in the mountains of Apalache. For their part, the Indians would have indicated the mountains as the source of such gold and copper as they may have acquired. Did the French put the name Apalatchi into the mouths of the Indians or was it a native term? With the evidence at hand, it is impossible to say. What is certain is that Le Moyne's map, “The Province of Florida in America”, is the first to clearly name the mountains as Appalachian. Inscriptions on the map read “Montes Apalatchi, in quibus aurum argentum & aes invenitur” ("in which gold, silver and copper are found"), and in the lake fed by the waterfall, “In hoc lacu Indigenae argenti grana inveniunt” (“In this lake the natives find grains of silver”). A village of Apalatchi is also identified.

In 1586 Richard Hakluyt took a statement from a Spaniard, Pedro Morales, taken prisoner by Sir Frances Drake in Florida. Morales noted that “Three score leagues up to the Northwest from Saint Helena are the mountains of the golde and Chrystall Mines, named Apalatchi.” Hakluyt added, “He saith also that he hath seene a rich Diamond which was brought from the mountaines that lye up in the countrey Westward from S. Helena. These hills seeme wholy to be the mountaines of Apalatchi, whereof the Savages advertised Laudonniere. . . . "

Le Moyne managed to escape the massacre of the Huguenots by the Spanish under Menéndez de Avilés and return to France in 1565. His map, which is customarily dated 1565, was not actually published until after his death when the map and paintings of the new world were purchased by Theodore de Bry, who brought out an illustrated edition on the French expeditions in 1591. Thus, perhaps fortunately, Le Moyne's version of the Appalachians was not available to Gerard Mercator in preparing his world map of 1569, which “is the first map to show the Appalachians as a continuous mountain range stretching parallel to the coast in a southwestnortheasterly direction. . . . Mercator's delineation of the southern mountain region by a roughly inverted Y is in general not improved until the early part of the eighteenth century.” There is no indication that Mercator named these mountains Appalachian, however. Apalchen on his map appears to designate the region between the forks of the Y of the mountains. drained by the “River Sola” (probably the Savannah River).

Once published, Le Moyne's map had considerable influence. In 1597 Corneille Wytfliet published a map of “Florida and Apalche” which terms as Apalche the territory between Virginia and Florida (north of the Rivers Secco and Sola, or Savannah River). Jodocus Hondius published an edition of Mercator's atlas in 1606 with a revised map of the southeast that shows Le Moyne's waterfall and lake, his inscriptions about precious metals, and the “Apalatcy Montes auriferi,” or “golden Appalachian Mountains.” William Cumming comments on the impact of Le Moyne's map: “The map contains many striking details, frequently erroneous, which were incorporated in other maps for over a hundred and fifty years. It was Le Moyne's misfortune to have many of his errors in-corporated and even exaggerated in Mercator's map of 1606, upon which for half a century much of the subsequent cartography of the region was based.”

During the eighteenth century, the term Allegheny emerged as the principal rival to Appalachian. By convention the southern half of the eastern mountain chain was known as the Appalachians and the northern half the Alleghenies.15 The overall designation alternated between the two. Ambivalence about the appropriate term for the entire region is apparent in Washington Irving's proposal for a more accurate name for the country than “United States of America.” In a letter to the editor of the The Knickerbocker in 1839 signed “Geoffrey Crayon,” Irving suggested, perhaps tongue in cheek. “We have it in our power to furnish ourselves with such a national appellation from one of the grand and eternal features of our country; from that noble chain of mountains which formed its backbone, and ran through the “old confederacy,” when it first declared our national independence: I allude to the Appalachian or Allegheny mountains. We might do this without any very inconvenient change in our present titles. We might still use the phrase "The United States," substituting Appalachia, or Alleghenia, (I should prefer the latter,) in place of America. The title of Appalachian, or Alleghenian, would still announce us as Americans, but would specify us as citizens of the Great Republic. Even our old national cypher of U.S.A. might remain unaltered, designating the United States of Alleghenia.”

This is probably the first appearance in print of the term Appalachia; the Latinized suffixia was in vogue at the time in forming names of states or countries. Irving wasn't the only one to show a preference for Allegheny over Appalachian. The 1860 census, for example, in a study of mortality rates in "the great natural divisions," terms the area "From Pennsylvania through Virginia, Eastern Tennessee, &c., to Northern Alabama" as “The Allegheny Region.”18 An article published by geographer Arnold Henry Guyot in 1861 is credited with establishing scientific and popular usage for the entire mountain range. Evidently, Guyot also had difficulty deciding which term is more appropriate: “He apparently hesitated between the names. His map, prepared in advance, used Allegheny, but his final title was On the Appalachian Mountain System.”19 Guyot naturally notes the east to west division of the Appalachian system into parallel chains of mountains separated from the plateaus by the Great Appalachian Valley, and he also proposed dividing the system from north to south into three areas: the northern division, from the Adirondacks to the Gaspé Peninsula in Canada; the middle or central division from New York south of the Mohawk to the New River; and the southern division from the New River to the extremity of the system. He also places the central and southern division together in a southern section. Guyot's authority was followed by John Wesley Powell in his Physiographic Regions of the United States, which designates the eastern mountains from New York to Alabama as the Appalachian Ranges. Powell introduces a new twist, however, by terming the entire upland area to the west of the Appalachian mountain ranges the Allegheny Plateaus. He also uses the New River as a dividing line between what he calls the northern and southern Ap-palachian ranges.

At this point our survey shifts emphasis from geographic nomenclature, now firmly established, to Appalachia as a cultural region and a social and economic problem area. Until the Civil War, “the Appalachians” was simply a term for a physiographic section of mountains. There was little to distinguish the way of life there from life generally on the American frontier. The “discovery” of Appalachia as a distinctive cultural region was led by the writers of the “local color” movement who began in the mid-1870's to use the mountaineer as a subject of fiction and travel sketches published in popular national magazines. Carvel Collins records that between 1875 and 1900 “more than two hundred novels and stories were published which described the hill people as quaint and isolated, living peculiar lives in the shadow of awe-inspiring peaks.”21 Three underlying social and historical forces contributed to the discovery of the traditional subculture of the Southern Appalachians in the period following the Civil War: the mountaineer's loyalty to the Union, the end of the frontier, and the rapid expansion of industrial capitalism. The first served to distinguish the mountaineer from other Southern whites, and the second and third made him appear an anachronism in comparison to the mythical mainstream American.

Educators and social reformers sought to define this Southern Appalachian cultural region as a social problem area deserving the attention of church home mission boards and private philanthropic foundations. The first person to give a precise geographic definition to the Southern Appalachians as a cultural region was William G. Frost, President of Berea College from 1892 to 1920. Together with his former student, C.W. Hayes, then working for the Geological Survey, Frost identified 194 counties he called “the Mountain Region of the South” in 1894. He announced this discovery of “a new pioneer region in the mountains of the Central South” in 1895, and went on to elaborate his view in several articles in national magazines. The most influential of these is “Our Contemporary Ancestors in the Southern Mountains” in the Atlantic Monthly for March 1899, in which Frost describes the region as “The mountainous back yards of nine states . . . one of God's grand divisions, and in default of any other name we shall call it Appalachian America.” Frost's lead was followed by a number of writers including Samuel Tyndale Wilson, Horace Kephart (who gets credit for reintroducing the term Appalachia), and James Watt Raine.

The landmark study and definition of the region was made by John C. Campbell in The Southern Highlander and His Homeland published in 1921.24 Campbell includes sections of the same nine states from Maryland to Alabama identified by Frost, but expands the number of counties included to 254. He identifies three parallel divisions: the Blue Ridge Belt and the Allegheny-Cumberland Belt, with the Greater Appalachian Valley in between. Campbell's initiative in organizing the Conference of Southern Mountain Workers in 1913 and his ties with the Russell Sage Foundation provided the organizational and financial base for a small but persistent social movement to secure an adequate private and public response to the problems of the Southern Appalachians. It was largely the Conference (later the Council of the Southern Mountains), Berea College, and their magazine Mountain Life & Work, launched in 1925, that sustained the relative handful of educators, ministers, and community workers who kept alive through thick and thin the idea of Appalachia as a distinctive cultural and social problem region.

Campbell always preferred the designation “Southern Highlands” for the region. Discussing his reasons for this choice, Campbell wrote, “Southern Appalachians is a term sometimes used, but inasmuch as this term is limited by geographers [evidently a reference to Guyot and Powell] to that part of the Appalachian mountain system lying south of the New River Divide in southern Virginia, some other name for the whole territory under consideration is necessary. The designation Southern Mountains has also been used. But because so often descriptions of depressed social conditions, which are true only of limited areas, have been given without qualification as existing throughout the Southern mountains, this term has come to carry with it the implication that such conditions prevail generally throughout the region.” After a lyrical passage describing the beauty of the mountain country and its romantic folk tradition, Campbell concludes “there is but one name that will do it justice-the Southern Highlands.” A more convincing explanation of Campbell's evoking the image of highland Scotland may be found in his effort to overcome the myth of the degenerate race of “mountain whites” that appeared in some stories of the local color writers after 1889, and in the historical works of John Fiske and others. Campbell contrasts to this genetic argument an environmental explanation centered on isolation, “while establishing the mountaineer in the morally favorable ground of middle-class Romanticism,” as Henry Shapiro comments. But as these issues lost their salience, Campbell's argument against the common usage of Southern Appalachians had little impact despite the classic character of his study.

-- excerpt "On the Naming of Appalachia" from An Appalachian Symposium: Essays written in honor of Cratis D. Williams, edited by J. W. Williamson (Boone, NC: Appalachian State University Press, 1977).

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MO' TOWN

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Graphic above: Photograph of winter scene at river

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The ever-popular and multiply-awarded

"Tourism poured more than $197 million into Washington County in 2008, according to a report by Dr. Steven Moore, director and economist at the tourism institute at the University of Tennessee. That ranks the county 10th highest out of the 95 counties in Tennessee for that year. The Northeast Tennessee region also had the highest percent growth in tourism spending statewide, at 6.3 percent in 2008.... Washington County has 12.7 percent of its total employment in the tourism and hospitality field. Tourism generated $11.47 million in state taxes and $4.57 million in local county taxes, according to the report. The money generated saves Washington County residents more than $300 per year in taxes.... Festivals and niche tourism in Jonesborough helps boost restaurant spending in the county, one telltale sign of tourism, Morse said...." -- Kate Prahlad, Assistant Editor, Herald & Tribune, 4/20/10

Video above: Go Rest High on that Mountain, written and performed by Vince Gill

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"Disguised as a university campus, East Tennessee State University Arboretum in Johnson City is home to more than 250 species of trees, some of them sprouting with history, charm and mystery. For around 200 years, the Sherrod white oak has seen everything from Andrew Jackson to a whole campus constructed around it. This 103-foot-tall giant was standing when Johnson City was not yet Johnson City. Trees were brought from Asia and planted next to their closest-of-kin in the Asian-American 'sister species' display. Several species of trees, including some maples, tulip poplars and magnolias, are indigenous only to eastern Asia and the southeastern United States. Not all trees have definite roots. No one knows how one particular Toona tree ended up on campus. No record of the tree exists, and Toonas are not native to North America.... A variety of trees scattered throughout campus creates a rustic, scenic setting. Picnic tables and benches rest under the shade of branches. From giant trees to dwarf conifers, the arboretum creates a diverse atmosphere that encompasses the whole campus.... The arboretum memorial program lets anyone affiliated with ETSU plant a tree in memory of a loved one...." -- ETSU student Sloane Trentham in Campus of Trees, TravelHost Tricities

Bluegrass Underground is a monthly bluegrass concert series, recorded live at Cumberland Caverns. Those performances are streamed world-wide on wsmonline.com. Between Knoxville, Chattanooga and Nashville, McMinnville's Cumberland Caverns is "Tennessee's largest show cave and a U.S. National Natural Landmark. The cave displays some of the largest underground rooms and most spectacular formations in America." More than 32 miles of underground caves have been explored now there. Discovered in 1810, the site also includes an historic 1812 saltpeter mine, whose essential ingredient for gun powder was procured here during the War of 1812 and the Civil War. There is "a spectacular one and a half mile tour that allows you to view a beautiful waterfall and gleaming pools. The Underground Ballroom features a unique and beautiful 3/4-ton crystal chandelier. The Chandelier was originally installed in 1928 in the Loews Metropolitan Theatre in Brooklyn, NY. We were lucky enough to rescue it when the theatre was being renovated. It now hangs in one of our largest rooms, the Volcano Room. The Volcano Room is often used for meetings, banquets, and we have even had weddings there. The Chandelier itself is 15’ tall and 8.5’ wide. It contains 150 various color bulbs and countless hand cut crystals. Every tour also is highlighted by the original underground pageant of light and sound, 'God of the Mountain,' an awe-inspiring retelling of the creation." The tour takes about an hour and a half to complete. For hardy explorers, the caverns also offer group daytime and overnight spelunking adventures. -- Cumberland Caverns TN


"The Frist Center opened in April 2001, and since that time has hosted a spectacular array of art from the region, the country, and around the world. Unlike any traditional museum you’ve ever visited, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts has become a magnet for Nashville’s rapidly expanding visual arts scene. With an exhibitions schedule that has new art flowing through the magnificent Art Deco building every 6 to 8 weeks, no matter how often you visit, there is always something new and exciting to see in the spacious galleries.... The Frist Center was conceived as a family-friendly place and one of the most popular locations in the center is the innovative Martin ArtQuest Gallery. It’s a colorful space alive with the sounds of learning through making art! ArtQuest activities abound for people of all ages. With 30 interactive stations, and the assistance of knowledgeable staff and volunteers, ArtQuest teaches through activity. Make a print, paint your own original watercolor, create your own colorful sculpture! It’s all there in ArtQuest, and it’s free with gallery admission for adults and always free for students 18 and under...." -- Frist Center, Nashville TN

Video below: Frist Center's exhibit of Korean artist U-Ram Choe’s New Urban Species


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