(WBIR) Blame it on Halloween just around the corner or a blood moon on the horizon. Whatever the reason, people on social media are in the mood for tales of ghosts and ghost towns.
Monday we debunked a viral story by some tabloids that claimed a hiker shot video as he discovered an abandoned town in the Great Smoky Mountains that was "untouched for 100 years." In fact, the abandoned town was the cottages at Elkmont. The person who shot the video never made these outlandish claims and was merely using the word "discovered" in the context of saying he "stumbled upon" or "saw" the cabins.
Related Story: Hiker discovers Smokies town? We didn't know it was missing
While talk of secret hidden lands in the most visited national park in the country are obviously too sensational to be true, Tennessee can more than satisfy your hunger for historic abandoned sites. These include places where people were driven from their land for the sake of parks, lakes, and nukes.
Rugby - A Failed Utopia
Some ghost towns simply failed. That includes the historic community of Rugby in Morgan and Scott Counties. Rugby was founded in 1880 as an experimental Utopian colony. The social experiment struggled with diseases such as typhoid and poor crops. Many of the original colonists died or moved away from Rugby by 1887.
In the 1960s, people made a concerted effort to restore the structures at Rugby. The architecture and history of the area is a sight to behold. Historic Rugby is now a very popular spot for tourists.
Nobody in No Business
In the middle of Big South Fork National River and Recreational Area, you'll find an abandoned town called No Business. All that is left of the town are a few stone chimneys and No Business Creek. The flowing fresh water and fertile land were home to a strong community until many residents moved away after World War II in search of jobs.
Now the National Park Service owns the vacant town and maintains some of the ruins. You can drive within a mile or two of No Business, but have to make the rest of the trek on foot.
Smoky Mountains Saturated
The National Parks are full of old abandoned communities. Many of the sites are among the most popular destinations in the Great Smoky Mountains.
There are the old cottages at historic Elkmont, the ruins at the Proctor community at Hazel Creek, and the historic valley that hundreds of people once called home at Cades Cove.
Secret City Cleared Communities
From October 1942 to March of 1943, the Army Corp of Engineers acquired all of the land that now comprises the city of Oak Ridge. The military evicted all of the residents on short notice and began top secret work on the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bomb.
The Secret City is far from a secret anymore. But gone and somewhat forgotten are the tiny communities that were wiped out by the construction of Oak Ridge. That includes the small community of Elza. Another town in the Roane County portion of Oak Ridge was known as the community of Wheat. You can still see the old Wheat Church from State Route 58, but you cannot drive to it. You can walk or ride your bike on a greenway that goes to the church.
Dammed and Gone
While many of the abandoned historic communities are still visible in some form, some of Tennessee's ghost towns are buried in a watery grave.
When TVA built a series of dams and reservoirs through Appalachia, it drowned many communities in deep water. At the bottom of Norris Lake sits the remains of the community of Loyston.
Now nothing remains of many communities other than historic photographs taken before the dams were constructed. Some have landmarks that honor the names of the communities.
Lyrics to folk songs also pay homage to the submerged homes. "My hometown is a half-mile down. There's a half mile of water all around," are lyrics to the song Half Mile Down by the old-time string band Old Crow Medicine Show.
The town of Butler was buried beneath the waters of the Watauga in 1948. Butler was the only incorporated community submerged by TVA's reservoirs. The town had a population of around 600 people when residents were evicted for the construction of the Watauga Dam.
Butler took an unexpected last gasp in 1983. That's when TVA drained the lake to repair the Watauga Dam. In the process, it revealed the remnants of the old town and gave residents a chance to bid a final farewell to their underwater town.
Whether the locations are beneath the water or high in the mountains, each of the abandoned sites provides a chance for personal discovery. The history of these locations may help you find exactly what makes Tennessee what it is today.
