The Ogle family goes way back in the Gatlinburg area. In fact, Noah Ogle’s great-grandparents, William (1756–1803) and his wife Martha Huskey (1756–1826), made a life here in the early 1800s. Noah (aka Bud) and Cindy Ogle settled on this 400 acre homestead in 1879 and lived here until Noah’s death in 1913.
The Smoky Mountains forest has reclaimed most of the cleared land now, so it’s hard to imagine a family making a subsistence living here. All that is left now is the log cabin and barn. The cabin is “saddle-bag” style, with two cabins joined by a common chimney. The barn is the last remaining four-pen barn in the Smokies, consisting of four 11-square-foot livestock pens, covered by a split-shingled roof.
Just behind the cabin is a nature trail that meanders through a hemlock forest beside LeConte Creek to an old tub mill with wooden flume.
To visit the Ogle Farm, turn at stoplight number 8 in Gatlinburg and go up the hill, entering the Smoky Mountain National Park via the Cherokee Orchard Road entrance. The old farmstead is an attractive location for photos anytime of year. I love to come up here after a snowfall, as compositions with the old log cabin and barnwood in a snowy setting make for especially attractive photos.
The Ogle cabin is one of my Featured Photos. Please stop in and visit me to see the complete display of Smoky Mountains Photography at the William Britten Gallery in Gatlinburg, TN.
