Hidden within the forests of the Great Smoky Mountains lies a forgotten holiday haven once frequented by East Tennessee's wealthiest families. Now reduced to a ghost town, Elkmont bustled with charming log cabins and plush amenities in the late 19th and 20th centuries – the exclusive community even boasted a Millionaires' Row.
Click or scroll on and let's take a trip back in time and discover why this luxury destination was so hastily abandoned – and why its future is finally looking up...
However, tourism in Elkmont didn't really take off until 1910, when the Little River Lumber Company started selling plots of land to members of Knoxville's elite.
The previous year, the firm had established a daily railroad service connecting the city with the picturesque mountain town. Day-trippers and vacationers would ride in open observation cars to make the most of the breathtaking views.
Knoxville's wealthiest residents flocked to the town, buying up land and erecting luxury summer cabins to vacation in.
In 1910, the private Appalachian Club was constructed, along with a large clubhouse. The 3,000-square-foot structure was used as a gathering place for members and their guests, and hosted many a glittering event.
The Wonderland Hotel, a swish 50-room resort lodge, was constructed in 1912 and bought in 1919 by a group of Knoxville businessmen, who formed the exclusive Wonderland Club. Grander than the Appalachian Clubhouse, the two-storey hotel was located just above the Little River Railroad station.
As you can see from this amazing historic photo of the Wonderland Hotel lobby captured in 1938, the lodge, like the other buildings in Elkmont, was decked out in rustic décor and featured large stone and brick fireplaces, hardwood flooring and clapboard walls. The rooms were filled with country-style furniture, including homely rocking chairs and wooden sofas.
Stone steps led from the station to the hotel and the staircase became a popular spot for visitors to pose for photos. Rocks from the Little River were cemented at the top of the steps, spelling out ‘Wonderland’.
The steps can still be seen today but thanks to dense overgrowth and weeds, they're pretty hard to discern.
Vacationers and their guests also congregated around the stone fountain in front of the hotel, as shown in this photo taken some time in the 1920s or 1930s.
While the fountain has survived to the present day, it's losing the fight with Mother Nature so you'll need to be eagle-eyed to spot it.
Sadly, this is all that remains of the upscale Wonderland Hotel. The building collapsed in 2005 and what was left burned to the ground in 2017 in a suspected arson attack. Several cabins were also set alight.
The Appalachian Clubhouse actually succumbed to fire in 1934, but was rebuilt that same year and has since been restored for posterity.
One of Elkmont's main thoroughfares was captured here in all its faded glory in 2017 by photographer Leland Kent of Abandoned Southeast.
During the 1920s and 1930s, the resort town's heyday, Elkmont was the premier summer destination for the upper echelons of Knoxville society.
Dozens of cabins were built lining the road to the Appalachian Clubhouse. This section of Elkmont became known as Daisy Town. Other parts of the resort were dubbed Millionaires' Row and Society Hill on account of their lavish log residences.
The Levi Trentham cabin is the oldest structure in the town and one of the most venerable surviving homes in the Great Smoky Mountains.
The log building was constructed in 1830 and was home to mountaineer Levi Trentham, the so-called 'Prophet of the Smokies', who served as a guide to many of the Elkmont holidaymakers.
The cabin was originally located in the nearby Jake's Creek area. It was transplanted to Daisy Town following Trentham's death in 1932 to serve as a guest cottage.
Trentham put his carpentry skills to good use despite his advancing age and helped build a number of log cottages in Elkmont during the 1910s and 1920s.
Architectural features of the mountain man's former home such as dovetail corners and exterior stone chimneys were incorporated in many of the structures erected during those decades.
The Avent Cabin is the second-oldest structure in the Elkmont area. Built in 1845, the cottage was acquired in 1918 by Frank Avent and his wife Mayna Treanor Avent, an artist who used the property as a studio and painted some of her most admired works there.
The area nicknamed Society Hill is located on the banks of Jake's Creek. Moneyed Knoxvillians built sprawling vacation cottages overlooking the tranquil river.
Unfortunately, many of the abandoned homes here have gone to rack and ruin, with most properties slowly sliding down the mountainside.
This image of one of the derelict homes' interiors, taken back in 2016, shows the extent of the damage to many of the properties in the town.
Large in scale with a lofty vaulted ceiling and a beautiful river rock fireplace that stretches the room's full height, it's evident that this residence was once the retreat of an affluent family. Now, the space is a shadow of its former self, blighted by crumbling floorboards and a collapsed roof.
Colonel WB Townsend, the founder of the Little River Lumber Company, oversaw the construction of one of the finest structures in Elkmont, a captivating Swiss-style chalet called Spindle Top.
The colonel spent many summers in the chalet with his wife Alice. The cabin, which is also known as the Miller Cabin, was thereafter leased to newspaper editor Loye Miller.
These days the chalet is in a sorry state of disrepair if this photo is anything to go by.
In a tale of riches to ruins, debris litters the floors and windowpanes are missing from the French doors that lead out onto the porch. Still, the structure itself appears fairly robust, unlike the rickety cottages of Society Hill that line the river.
Colonel WB Townsend and his wife Alice also rented out several deluxe surrounding cottages, including Faust Cabin and Cambier Cabin.
Along with Society Hill, this part of town, known as Millionaires' Row, was the most sought-after in Elkmont.
Elkmont also had less affluent areas too, home to modest residences for those involved in the logging industry, as well as humble vacation cottages that were owned or rented by Knoxville's less well-off residents.
Not short of amenities, the town boasted a church, a general store, a post office, a theatre and even a graveyard.
Looking at this eerie scene today, it's not hard to imagine why Elkmont was named Tennessee's creepiest ghost town in 2022 by media platform Thrillist.
Ironically, efforts to preserve Elkmont and the surrounding wilderness led to its demise. Things started to unravel for the town in 1920, when cottage owner William P Davis, who was inspired by Yellowstone National Park, teamed up with fellow Elkmont landowner David C Chapman to campaign for the creation of a national park in the Great Smoky Mountains.
The duo successfully persuaded state legislators to grant the area National Park status and in 1925, the Little River Lumber Company sold 76,000 acres of land to the State of Tennessee.
A slew of long-term residents around Elkwood were given their marching orders, but property owners in Elkmont itself were afforded the option of selling their cabins for half price in exchange for lifetime leases.
The lifetime leases were converted to 20-year leases in 1952 and renewed again in 1972. But luck was running out for the leaseholders and in 1992 the National Park Service refused to renew the contracts.
The decision was influenced by environmental organisation the Sierra Club, which argued that private land ownership shouldn't be permitted within National Parks. The landowners were effectively kicked out and the cabins and other structures were abandoned.
A plan devised in the 1980s called for the demolition of all structures in Elkmont to return the area to nature, but this was thwarted in 1994 when the Wonderland Hotel and other notable structures were placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The group of 18 buildings is known as the Elkmont Historic District.
Despite their protected status, little if nothing was done to preserve the endangered historic houses, which became increasingly dilapidated.
The powers that be spent years debating the future of the ghost town and, as mentioned earlier, the Wonderland Hotel collapsed in 2005 as a consequence of their inaction.
At long last, preservation work got underway in 2009, 15 years after Elkmont's finest structures were declared important historical monuments.
The Appalachian Club was the first building in the town to get the renovation treatment and was restored to its former glory that year.
In 2009, the National Park Service also announced plans to revamp 19 cabins deemed historically significant, leaving 55 of Elkmont's 74 cabins slated for demolition.
Restoration work is still ongoing, and to date, 16 buildings have been brought back to life, all concentrated in the enclave's Daisy Town neighbourhood.
Sadly, in 2017, 29 structures were demolished along the Little River Trail and Jake's Creek Trail.
The restored properties include the once-rundown Levi Trentham Cabin, the Avent Cabin, which is the oldest structure in Elkmont, and the pretty pink Spence Cabin, which can now be hired from the National Park Service for weddings and other events.
The Creekmore Cabin has also been restored. Built around 1910, the property was, as you might have guessed, owned by the Creekmore clan.
In addition to the aforementioned houses, other structures that have been preserved for future generations include the Mayo Cottage, along with the cabin's servants' quarters.
According to WBIR Channel 10, this forgotten corner of Tennessee is now welcoming visitors back once more. The Daisy Town region is being transformed into a living museum of sorts, with 16 preserved structures opened to the public, and more currently undergoing restoration works.
The extensive preservation project is projected to cost around $9 million (£7.3m) in total and will show visitors how Elkmont looked a century ago.
Documented here in April 2023, WBIR Channel 10's reporter got a glimpse at one cabin that's being restored – the summer home of David C Champman, the historic resident who advocated for the Great Smoky Mountains to become a National Park.
So it seems Elkmont's story has a partially happy ending. A swathe of this remarkable bygone outpost is being rescued from ruin and given the attention it so badly needs.
Sadly, other areas of the settlement haven't been as lucky as Daisy Town, and nature continues to reclaim their historic structures.
Nevertheless, the town's spirit and its history live on through the saved cabins, preserved for future generations to rediscover.
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