Thompson Brothers Great Smoky Mountains Photograph Collection

This summer, the Knoxville History Project is partnering with the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection and other cultural organizations to celebrate the 100th anniversary of when Knoxville leaders and outdoor enthusiasts created a remarkable grassroots movement to establish a new national park in the Great Smoky Mountains. This event will feature an educational symposium with programs by Jack Neely, Paul James, and Smokies’ authors, including David Brill, Ken Wise and Daniel Pierce, at the East Tennessee History Center July 26-27. A special evening at the Bijou Theatre will showcase the Smoky Mountains photographs and films by Jim Thompson in partnership with Eric Dawson, McClung Historical Collection and John Morton, Tennessee Archive of Moving Image & Sound on July 26. Learn more KnoxvilleHistoryProject.org/Smokies

These photographs, taken in the Smokies in the 1920s and 1930s, were selected from McClung’s extensive collection. These photos were widely exhibited and circulated, especially in the form of hand-tinted photographs and postcards, promoting tourism and advocating for the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Jim Thompson was also an avid motion picture photographer and would often haul his movie camera into the Smokies to capture moving images of flowing creeks and rushing waterfalls, as well as activities of his fellow hikers in the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club.  View more vintage photos online at CMDC.Knoxlib.org/

Winter on LeConte

The Thompsons likely photographed Mt. Le Conte more than any other single location in the Smokies, either from a distance to showcase its majestic peak, or on top of the mountain itself. Looking at their photos of Le Conte, often amid clouds or backlit with sunlight, it’s easy to see why. At 6,593 feet, it’s the third tallest peak in the park and one of its most strenuous hikes. It became a popular hike for the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club in the 1920s, and it remains a popular destination for hikers today, in part because of the lodge built there. The panoramic photos the Thompsons created are especially striking, this one showing the then small village of Gatlinburg at the base of Le Conte’s snowy peaks. 

Walker Sisters Cabin, Five Sisters Cove

The five Walker Sisters were something of an unexpected tourist attraction in the Smokies during the 1940s and 1950s, even appearing in an article in The Saturday Evening Post. Their appeal to visitors was the fact they lived in a cabin in Little Greenbrier Cove built by their father, John Walker, in the 1840s, and their day-to-day life was much as it would have been in the 19th century. Though the sisters passed away decades ago, the cabin was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and can be reached via Little Brier Gap Trail in Metcalf Bottoms. The Thompsons made postcards of Walker cabin photos, such as this one showing Polly Walker sitting on the front steps.

Col. David Chapman and Group on the Summit of Mt. Chapman

In late 1923, the Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association was formed with the aim of advocating for the creation of a national park in the Smokies. Col. David Chapman (1876-1944), foregrounded in this picture, was the Association’s president. Due to his enthusiastic advocacy, Chapman is often referred to as the Father of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He was one of few Americans to have a major mountain peak named for him while he was still living, and this photograph captures the even more rare instance of someone sitting atop their namesake peak. Chapman Highway, Knoxville’s oldest direct route to Gatlinburg and the Smoky Mountains, also bears his name. Other Association members in the picture, from left to right, are Harvey B. Broome, Mrs. Charles W. Myers, Miss Mildred Query and Jim Thompson.

Parking plaza on Clingman's Dome, July 1939, Hand-tinted photograph

This hand-tinted photograph of Clingman’s Dome, dated July 1939, was taken five years after the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was chartered by Congress, but 14 months before the park would be officially dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt at this same location. From the number of cars present at this still popular overlook, one can see that the Smokies were already a popular destination for tourists. Although several color processes had been developed since the 1860s, it wasn’t until the introduction of Kodachrome in the 1930s that color photography became widely used. Hand tinting, in which color was added to a black and white image, was a favorite alternative. The Thompsons frequently employed this process, especially when manufacturing postcards. Note how the road and certain cars and people in this image have not been colored, making the colors of the mountains in the distance and the grass in the bottom left foreground that much more vibrant.

Jim Thompson (1881-1976) and his younger brother Robin Thompson (1895-1977) were Knoxville’s most successful commercial photographers during the first half of the 20th century. Individually and operating as Thompson Brothers, they created thousands of photos documenting the city and its people. They were also avid hikers and were pioneers in capturing the Great Smoky Mountains in photographs throughout the 1910s and 1920s.