Noah Ogle Place
The Noah "Bud" Ogle Place was a homestead located in the Great Smoky Mountains of Sevier County, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. The homestead presently consists of a cabin, barn, and tub mill built by mountain farmer Noah "Bud" Ogle in the late 19th century. In 1977, the homestead was added to the National Register of Historic Places and is currently maintained by the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The surviving structures at the Noah Ogle Place are characteristic of a typical 19th-century Southern Appalachian mountain farm. Ogle's cabin is a type known as a "saddlebag" cabin, which was a relatively rare design in the region. Ogle's barn is an excellent example of a four-pen barn, a design once common in the area, although this barn is the last remaining four-pen barn in the park. Ogle's tub mill is the park's last surviving operational tub mill and one of the few operational tub mills in the region. A later owner of the Ogle farm renamed the farm "Junglebrook," and the farm is thus sometimes referred to as the "Junglebrook Historic District."
Location
The Noah Ogle Place is situated near LeConte Creek in the upper drainage of the West Fork of the Little Pigeon River. Gatlinburg lies opposite the park boundary to the north, Roaring Fork lies opposite the hills to the east, the Sugarlands lies opposite the hills to the west, and Mount Le Conte rises to the south. Cherokee Orchard Road connects the Noah Ogle Place to U.S. Route 441 in downtown Gatlinburg to the north and to the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail to the south. The site's tub mill is situated on the banks of LeConte Creek, approximately from the cabin and barn.History
Noah Ogle's great-grandparents, William Ogle and his wife Martha Huskey, were the first Euro-American settlers in the Gatlinburg area, arriving in the early 19th century. The Ogles' descendants quickly spread out into the adjacent river and creek valleys. Noah Ogle's farm originally consisted of, although by the early 20th century he had subdivided his land among his children, and retained only. These last comprise the bulk of the Bud Ogle Farm historic district.Ogle's cabin and outbuildings were built in the late 1880s and early 1890s. The land was poor and rocky, and Ogle mostly grew corn. The land did include a sizeable apple orchard which grew multiple types of apples. Ogle's relatives were allowed free use of his tub mill, while others were charged a small percentage of meal. Excess corn and apples were shipped to markets in Knoxville. Ogle's wife, Lucinda Bradley Ogle, was a local midwife.
Along with the surviving structures and typical mountain farm outbuildings, Ogle's farm included a so-called "weaner cabin." A weaner cabin was typically a small cabin near the main house where the farmer's children could live for a brief period after marrying. Several of Ogle's sons lived in the Ogle weaner cabin after their respective marriages. The weaner cabin is no longer standing, although a pile of rubble remains from its foundation.
In the 1920s, several investors established a commercial apple orchard and ornamental nursery known as "Cherokee Orchard" just south of the Ogle homestead. When the Tennessee Park Commission began buying up property for the creation of the national park in the late 1920s, the owners of Cherokee Orchard threatened to fight a major appropriations for bill for the park's funding if their land was condemned. The orchard's owners dropped their opposition in 1931 in exchange for a long lease on the property.