| Sources |
- [S84] E-Mail, Carroll McMahan [cmcmahan@scoc.org], 25 Jul 2007.
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 12 Feb 2012.
Stan Voit: Sevierville history comes alive in book
He’s been busy the last few weeks putting together the third annual Rose Glen Literary Festival, but Carroll McMahan may have to find himself a spot on the program in 2013. Come June he will join the ranks of published authors.
McMahan spent much of the past year compiling photos and writing text for publication of “Images of America: Sevierville,” another in a series of books by Arcadia Publishing on the history of cities and counties cross the country.
The company published books in recent years on Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and was looking to find someone to do a similar book on Sevierville when someone recommended McMahan. He writes most of the weekly Upland Chronicles columns that appear Sundays in The Mountain Press. He also is the eighth generation of his family to live in Sevier County.
“They sent me a booklet and told me the rules and regulations, what the pictures needed to be and what the criteria for photographs was,” McMahan said. He spoke to authors of similar books to see what was involved.
Then he dove in. The first objective was to collect as many old photos as he could find. He started calling people he knew and checking at the libraries.
“I didn’t talk to a soul who was not supportive of the project,” he said.
Some 20 people contributed photos that ended up in the book, chief among them Jimmie and Marie Temple and John Waters. He was particularly interested in photos of buildings and public places, with which people could identify.
The publishers limited McMahan to 128 pages, text of no more than 18,000 words and around 250 photos. Once he got the photos and outlined his text, he divided the book into six chapters: A Firm Foundation, featuring his oldest photos; Faces and Places; Floods and Fires since Sevierville historically has been defined by those two things; Serving the Community, focusing on politicians and civic leaders; 20th Century Life; and a chapter of aerial shots of the city.
McMahan decided to take his book only up to around 1975, to keep with its historical perspective. He had no problem with the text, since he knows so much of the history of Sevierville where to find accounts of it. He did find out one important thing about his hometown.
“I did learn the Sevierville community at large is very interested in preserving history,” he said. “Anyone I approached was willing to do anything they could to make this project happen.”
He found a few photos that had never been published or viewed publicly, including some related to the Dolly Parton statue in front of the courthouse. The book contains a rarely seen photo of artist Jim Gray carving a miniature statue from which to make the permanent one. There is a shot of Dolly Parton with Gray next to his scale model and one of the boulder on which the statue would sit being brought to the courthouse.
McMahan, as instructed, submitted 10 photos to the publisher from which the cover shot would come. They chose one showing the east side of Court Avenue in the late 1940s, from Bruce Street looking north.
McMahan found it all to be a labor of love, if at times frustrating and tedious. He liked collecting the photos and enjoyed creating a chapter on aerial pictures which show floods, early roads, downtown and more sites around Sevierville before things took off.
The oldest photo he got was from the Herbert Lawson collection housed in the genealogy department at King Family Library. It shows a downtown flood in the late 1800s.
The book is due to be available for sale around June 25. It will retail for $21.99 and be sold at Books-A-Million, the national park bookstores, area gift shops, Wal-Mart and Union Bookstore in Knoxville, among other places. Arcadia has a marketing person to handle such things.
McMahan may make a little money on the book depending upon sales, but he neither expects to nor really wants to. He did it because he loves the community and wanted it chronicled in a book, to preserve history and photos that sometimes disappear with new generations.
McMahan and his wife of 24 years, Michelle, moved to Sevierville from Nashville in 2005. He is the special projects coordinator for the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce and grateful to his bosses’ support for his book.
The Rose Glen Literary Festival will be held Saturday, Feb. 25, at Walters State. McMahan is coordinating it. And now, more than ever, he’ll be able to identify with the authors who will be there. They all have the “write” stuff.
— Stan Voit is editor of The Mountain Press. His column appears each Sunday. He can be reached at 428-0748, ext. 217, or e-mail to svoit@themountainpress.com.
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 4 Oct 2013.
County historian pens book on park
Sevier County Historian F. Carroll McMahan has published a new book.
“Elkmont’s Uncle Lem Ownby - Sage of the Smokies” details the life of the last leaseholder living within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Born in 1889 in the Smoky Mountains, Ownby became one of the region’s most recognized figures. Sight-impaired from an early age, Lem spent his life logging, bear hunting, farming and tending his beehives. He welcomed the arrival of logging operations into the pristine wilderness but became an eyewitness to the devastation it brought to land, streams and wildlife.
As the last leaseholder living within the park, Lem became a legend, selling his honey and offering pearls of wisdom to hikers, writers and even the governor.
Lem’s principles remained solid, his opinions so unwavering that he once refused to entertain two Supreme Court justices.
In the book McMahan tells the dramatic, fascinating and sometimes humorous stories of a man who lived truly on his own terms.
The book’s author was born and raised in the shadows of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He is the special projects facilitator for the Sevierville, Tennessee Chamber of Commerce; serves as county historian of Sevier County; and writes the “Upland Chronicles,” a series that celebrates the heritage and past of Sevier County, published weekly in the Mountain Press.
He is the recipient of the 2012 Community History Award presented by the East Tennessee Historical Society and the Historic Preservation Recognition Award presented by the Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Spencer Clack Chapter.
McMahan will appear at Elkmont Chapel, Valley View Baptist Church at 2219 Little Cove Rd. Sevierville, TN 37862 on Saturday, Oct. 12, where he’ll be selling and signing copies of the book from 2-4 p.m.
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 17 Jan 2014.
Carroll McMahan chronicles history of Sevier County
KENNETH BURNS
Kenneth Burns
Sevier County Historian Carroll McMahan contributes the Upland Chronicles column to The Mountain Press. He is special projects coordinator at the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce.
Curt Habraken
Last Halloween, McMahan, left, hosted the “Ghosts of Sevierville” program, in which teens performed as people from the city’s past.
McMahan’s latest book, “Elkmont’s Uncle Lem Ownby,” tells the story of the last leaseholder to live in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
A few years ago, Carroll McMahan delivered a eulogy at his great-aunt’s funeral.
“I told about the family stories she used to tell,” said McMahan. “Now that she’s gone, I’m so thankful about the opportunity I had, that I listened to those stories. I’ve always been interested in the heritage of the people I grew up around.”
Since early 2013, McMahan, 64, has served as Sevier County historian. In that capacity, he responds to queries about local lore, and he consults on historic structures.
And nearly every week, he writes Upland Chronicles, the history column that runs each Sunday in The Mountain Press. In Upland Chronicles, McMahan explores a broad range of Sevier County topics, from pioneer days to the tourist trade.
He has written Upland Chronicles columns about triumphs and disasters, cabins and churches, architects and ferry boats. He has written about famous people and not-so-famous people.
“Many of my stories are about more obscure pieces of our heritage than would be in a regular history book,” McMahan said. “You can’t tell stories without talking about prominent people and political leaders, but at the same time, I like these stories to be about regular people living life here in Sevier County, people accomplishing something out of the ordinary.”
McMahan conceived Upland Chronicles in 2010 with commercial real estate advisor Ron Rader. “The idea was to invite other people to write, and we still do,” McMahan said. “But I’m sure I’ve written 90 percent of the articles over the past three and a half years.”
The column’s name was McMahan’s idea. “I wanted something that spoke to the area but didn’t have the words Sevier County or Smoky Mountains, because they’re used so frequently.”
To research his columns, McMahan consults archives including the history center at the King Family Library. He goes over funeral records.
And he does a lot of interviewing. “I know people all around the county,” he said. “In just about any section of the county, I know somebody who knows someone else who can tell me a particular thing.”
He’s careful to confirm what his sources tell him. “They tell you things you want to check out,” he said. “Older people, who tend to be the ones you talk to most often, can be a little sketchy on dates and facts. They know just enough to pique your interest, but you do have to go look things up.”
Unlike other communities its size, Sevier County is inextricably linked to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. So is its history.
“There’s very few (Upland Chronicles) articles where the Smoky Mountains park isn’t written about – lots of times in the context of the establishment of the park,” McMahan said. “And the whole tourism business that came out of that created lots of interesting stories about people who moved here and started interesting businesses.”
He gets a lot of feedback on his columns. “That makes me feel like they make an impact. The thing that surprises me is that I probably get as much feedback from people who are not natives of this area and have interest in the local heritage.”
McMahan is the author of two books: “Images of America: Sevierville” and “Elkmont’s Lem Ownby: Sage of the Smokies.” “Elkmont’s Lem Ownby,” which was published last year, tells the story of the last leaseholder who lived in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Since 2006, McMahan has worked for the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce, where he is special projects coordinator. He is a Sevierville native whose family has been in the area for seven generations.
A Sevier County High School graduate, he lived in Nashville for 20 years, where he worked in the airline industry. He met his wife Michelle, a nurse, in Nashville.
After a stint managing a bed and breakfast in Gustavus, Alaska, the two settled in Knoxville’s Fountain City neighborhood, where they are active members of Saint Albert the Great Catholic Church.
McMahan is a member of the East Tennessee and Smoky Mountains historical societies, and he is on the board of the East Tennessee Preservation Alliance. He received the East Tennessee Historical Society’s 2012 Community History Award. The Daughters of the American Revolution, Spencer Clack Chapter, gave him its Historic Preservation Recognition Award.
History is “extremely important,” McMahan said. “It’s hard to know where you’re going if you don’t know where you came from.”
kburns@themountainpress.com
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1949 - (74 years)
, d. 8 Nov 2014, Parkwest Medical Center, Knoxville, Knox County, Tennessee 
