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- [S106] The Mountain Press, 16 Aug 2004.
GATLINBURG - A home built in the early 20th century now stands ready to remind those in the next century of how life use to be in the heart of the Smokies.
Saturday was dedication day for the Arts and Crafts Heritage Center, a project that took four years from vision to fruition.
"This is a glorious day for us," said Great Smoky Arts and Crafts Foundation President Joseph Logsdon. "This place benefits all of us - all businesses, cities and citizens."
The new center used to be the home of Coy Ogle and his family during the 1920s and was located a short distance down the road from where the house now sits. The house was donated to the foundation in 2000 by then-owner Bill Proffitt.
Using donations and volunteers, the foundation was able to raise the house and move it to a more convenient location at the corner Glades Road and Proffitt Road within the Arts and Crafts Community.
"It was torn down board by board," Logsdon said.
By using a painstaking process, the reconstructed house was rebuilt using nearly 85 percent of its original materials.
"We were hanging pictures here last night and broke a drill bit," Logsdon said Saturday, describing the durability of the original materials. "This will stand another hundred years."
The center contains four public areas. Entering the front parlor, visitors find a Gatlinburg welcome center, which will be staffed by city employees who will answer questions and provide area information. Just to the left of the parlor is the bedroom, which is decorated much as it was when the Coy Ogle family originally lived there. A third room provides historical information about the crafts community and information about the foundation. Visitors can also see a kitchen containing historical objects from the early 1900s.
Logsdon said that he hopes the center will remain "alive and functional."
The Ogle house is the first phase of a grander plan to enhance the area. Logsdon showed an artist's rendition of a new arts and crafts museum, which is being planned in conjunction with the center.
"We want to use this to pass along our heritage," he added. "We hope to be able to pass along the arts to future generations with instructional classes, as well as develop a social gathering place."
20th century home now has new purpose
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 28 Jun 2006.
GATLINBURG - Opening of the Great Smoky Arts & Crafts Foundation Museum in August 2004 represented the fulfillment of a vision, but less than two years later, board members are hoping a benefactor will step forward to help them keep that vision alive.
Dennis McAvoy, president of the foundation's board of directors, has told foundation members that the board of directors has decided to sell the Heritage Center and property.
"We have agonized over this decision for several months and have not made this difficult decision lightly," he told members in his letter last week.
The Heritage Center is at 575 Proffitt Road in the 100-year-old Coy Ogle house, which was dismantled and moved from its original location on Ogle Road.
With a $230,000 loan, the foundation completely restored the house for use as a place in which to preserve and honor the history of the Arts and Crafts Community. Plans also called for offering programs and demonstrations related to the historic crafts community.
But the foundation's monthly layout of $3,000 for the mortgage, insurance, taxes and utilities has taken all the profits from its annual fund-raiser and, according to McAvoy, prohibited the foundation from moving forward with other plans for the museum.
"We've looked at other options and there's just nothing feasible, and we don't feel it's right going back to the craft community and asking them to pay the mortgage," McAvoy said.
The asking price for the 1.38-acre property is $330,000, and it is listed with Glades Realty.
While foundation board members hope that whoever buys the house will allow them to continue using it as a museum, Frances Fox Shambaugh made it clear that in any case the foundation will continue.
"We're not disbanding the foundation and we are not getting rid of the historic handcrafted items Kenton Temple, Mary Louise Hunt and I have collected for the museum. We are hoping to be able to display them at the Heritage Museum or another place, and we also plan to continue collecting and preserving oral histories and historic craft items from the Gatlinburg/Glades area," Shambaugh said.
"But we felt like if it took everything we had to pay the mortgage, we were not accomplishing our mission," she said. "We would like to have programs and demonstrations, and the mission was more than just to pay for a building."
Said board member Theresa Tyler, "It breaks my heart, but there's no other way out that we can find. My hope is that we will find a donor who will purchase the house for the purposes we bought it for in the first place - we really need to be doing the things we set about to do in the beginning or our organization.
"So many people in the county care so much about our history, and this is an opportunity to save a part of history that we won't otherwise have," she said.
- [S94] Sevier County, Tennessee Census, 459D, 1880.
- [S112] Census, 1920.
Name: Henry Mc Ogle
Event Type: Census
Event Year: 1920
Event Place: Civil District 2, Sevier, Tennessee, United States
Gender: Male
Age: 40
Marital Status: Married
Race: White
Race (Original): White
Can Read: Yes
Can Write: Yes
Relationship to Head of Household: Head
Relationship to Head of Household (Original): Head
Own or Rent: Own
Birth Year (Estimated): 1880
Birthplace: Tennessee
Father's Birthplace: Tennessee
Mother's Birthplace: Tennessee
Household Role Gender Age Birthplace
Henry Mc Ogle Head M 40 Tennessee
Laurinda Ogle Wife F 36 Tennessee
Vetress G Ogle Daughter F 16 Tennessee
Lloyd M Ogle Son M 14 Tennessee
Iver A Ogle Daughter F 10 Tennessee
Alice M Ogle Daughter F 7 Tennessee
Nancy R Ogle Daughter F 4 Tennessee
Stella G Ogle Daughter F 0 Tennessee
Richard T Clabo Head M 21 Tennessee
Lora M Clabo Wife F 18 Tennessee
- [S75] Atchley Funeral Home Records, Volume II, 1955-1973, Larry D. Fox, (Smoky Mountain Historical Society), 15 Jan 1972.
Ogle, Henry Coy 93 widowed by Laurinda Proffitt b. 11-19-78 TN d. 1-15-72 SCH res R1 Gatlinburg farmer f. Levi Ogle m. Nancy King Ogle Cem Survivors: 1 son Lloyd M R1 Gatlinburg 5 dau Lora Clabo Sev Mrs Iva Wright Gatlinburg Alice Fleming Gatlinburg Ruth Reece Gatlinburg Grace Wright Gatlinburg 20 gc 28 ggc 2 sis Mrs Nan Hickam Mrs Emma Baxter mem Glades Lebanon Bapt Ch sold apples by wagon from Park.
- [S34] In the Shadow of the Smokies, Smoky Mountain Historical Society, (1993), 549.
- [S147] Find a Grave, (Memorial: 45621212).
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