Wonderland Hotel
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[edit] Overview
The Wonderland Hotel was a hotel built in 1912 at Elkmont, Sevier County, Tennessee by the Wonderland Club and was dismantled and partially preserved in 2005 by the National Park Service.
[edit] History
In 1910 a group of prominent east Tennessee businessmen purchased 50 acres of land on Jakes creek, in Elkmont, Tennessee as a hunter’s retreat. The group was known as the Appalachian Club. The land was purchased from the Little River Lumber Company which owned most of the land from Gatlinburg to Cades Cove in what is today the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Elkmont was a station on the Little River Railway which provided access to Knoxville via a two hour train ride until the mid 1920’s.
The families built cabins on the land and commuted via the Little River Railway to the area during the summer months. In 1912, C.B. Carter and his brother founded the Wonderland Club, building a clubhouse which would later be known as the Wonderland Hotel.
The Wonderland Hotel (“the Hotel”) was a wood frame structure, built from local materials, including large chestnut boards harvested nearby. The steps to the Hotel originally started at the Little River Railroad tracks, which were removed secretly in the mid 1920’s when the logging of the area was complete and the Little River Railroad began losing money on the passenger line. The two clubs replaced the rail line with a primitive road along the old rail bed. Today, the rail and road bed constitute TN 73 from Townsend to Elkmont.
In 1923 the Wonderland Club and the Appalachian Club instigated the formation of the Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association (“the Association”) The Association campaigned for the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which was authorized by Congress in 1926 and dedicated by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1929. The Clubs managed to maintain the 50 acre concession of Elkmont by virtue of leases authorized by Congress when the park was formed.
The Hotel featured a wrap around porch wide enough for numerous white rocking chairs where visitors relaxed. The Hotel had sleeping rooms, and a dining room which became the social center of Elkmont for many years. The Hotel’s dining room became renown for excellent food in an extraordinary setting.
The Wonderland Hotel lease expired in 1990 and the National Park Service declined to renew the lease. In 1995 the Hotel was partially burned by persons unknown. In 2005, the remnants of the Hotel collapsed, leading to the removal of the Hotel’s remains in November 2006.
