Almost every Tennessean knows that Sevier County, Tennessee, is the home of Gatlinburg,
Pigeon Forge, Sevierville, Dollywood, and the main entrance into the Great Smoky Mountains
National Park. Although these places are significant to the tourism-driven economy of
Sevier County, its history and architecture span over two hundred years and cover much more
than the recent craze of country music theme parks and outlet shopping malls. For example,
did you know that the agriculturally-dominated economy of the county in the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries resulted in not one, but two distinct barns types unique to the
region? Millions of tourists and locals alike have marveled at the wonderful Sevier County
Courthouse in Sevierville, but did you know that it's probably the most elaborate courthouse
ever designed by a nationally-known architectural firm based in Louisville, Kentucky?
This kind of information is included in The Historic Architecture of Sevier County, Tennessee, which is the Volunteer State’s first publication of a comprehensive architectural county survey. In the summer of 1992, the Tennessee Historical Commission (THC) began an intensive survey of historically and architecturally significant properties in East Tennessee’s Sevier County. Conducted primarily by Robbie D. Jones, the survey resulted in the documentation of over 1,700 historic properties. Jones recorded historic houses, farms, stores, bridges, churches and other structures throughout Sevier County; from the plantations along the French Broad River to the log houses in the Great Smoky Mountains.
During the survey, Jones discovered that a large percentage of the county’s buildings were constructed by a family of African-American brick masons and a highly skilled black carpenter named Lewis Buckner. The tradition of African-American brick masons in Sevier County was led by Isaac Dockery, who began his trade soon after the conclusion of the Civil War. Dockery taught the trade to his sons and grandsons, who collectively built almost every public building, and a large number of the larger dwellings, in the county in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although the number of African Americans in Sevier County never numbered more than a small percentage of the total population, the extent of their effect on the local material culture is extraordinary and unprecedented in East Tennessee.
Sevier County boasts of several buildings designed by notable architects including George F. Barber (Knoxville), the McDonald Brothers (Louisville, Kentucky), Charles I. Barber (Knoxville), Hubert Bebb (Chicago), Adams & Alsup (Chattanooga), Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (Massachusetts), and Roland Wank (Knoxville). Wank, the TVA’s chief architect in the 1930s and 1940s, designed the Douglas Dam, which was constructed in record time during World War II along the French Broad River. Originally from Hungary, Wank has emerged as one of America’s most exceptional architects from the early twentieth century, and his remarkable TVA dams are considered international architectural and engineering landmarks.
Although Sevier County has many excellent architect-designed buildings, the large majority are common farmhouses built by yeoman farmers and planters in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These modest farmhouses dot the rolling hills of the county’s pastoral landscape and many retain their original outbuildings, such as log smokehouses and cantilever barns. This highly unique and vernacular building type is located primarily in East Tennessee and was documented on over two hundred farms in Sevier County. In the book East Tennessee Cantilever Barns, University of Tennessee architecture professors Marion Moffett and Lawrence Wodehouse theorize that the cantilever barn-type may have originally developed in Sevier County.
Jones documented other unexpected architectural discoveries during the survey as well, such as the Brabson Plank House, located on a Boyd’s Creek plantation. Probably constructed in the 1780s, this small building was built of a rare construction technique where hewn planks were pegged together. Jones also documented an antebellum dwelling which was used as a stagestop along the county’s original stagecoach road. Known as the old Wayland Inn, this farm was used for an anti-Confederate rally by Knoxville’s Oliver P. Temple just days before Tennessee voted to succeed from the Union. Other unique "finds" include industrial sites such as the original farm of Swaggerty’s Sausage Company; a mill at Kodak which produced flour for Knoxville’s White Lily Flour Company; a Boyd’s Creek dairy farm which produced milk for Kay’s Ice Cream; and an enormous canning factory in Sevierville originally built by Newport’s Stokely Canning Company.
Jones spent months driving the backroads of Sevier County where he photographed, sketched, and gathered the oral history of hundreds of farms. The culmination of an additional year of archival research is The Historic Architecture of Sevier County, Tennessee, which features over 240 photographs, several illustrations including many by the Historic American Building Survey, and dozens of drawings to create a comprehensive record of Sevier County’s built environment. By exploring the historical significance of these places, the book gives the reader a new way of discovering and interpreting not only Sevier County’s but East Tennessee’s rich and varied past.