Funny name, Charlie's Bunion, but this
is one very special place.
Let me fill you in on one of the stories of how it got this
name.
This story is from "Hiking Trails of the
Smokies. "
"A sharp change in the forst is the result of two catastrophes;
one natural and one man-caused. In their haste to clear-cut Smokies timber, early twentieth-century loggers left the
slash, or piles of brush and limbs culled from timber, in place. In 1925, a particularly vicious slash fire swept up
the drainage of Kephart Prong, consuming over 4 hundred acres of woodland. The fire left the precipitous western escarpment
of the Smokies void of vegetation. That was the initial man-make catastrophe.
A natural event followed that created one of the most spectacular
bluffs in the Appalachians. In 1929, a cloudburst scoured the veneer of soil from the exposed slopes, clogging area rivers
with soil, rock and trees from the denudation of the landscape. Local writer Horace Kephart, widely known for both his
knowledge of outdoor lore and his acerbic wit, assembled a crew to survey the damage rendered by the storm. The hiking
party included his friend Georga Masa, a photographer of some renown, and Charlie Conner a local mountaineer. Undoubtedly
awed by the destruction that exposed this new, craggy promontory in the Sawteeth Range, the group felt it required a name.
Not one to repress levity, Kephart likened the knobby appearance of the cliffs to Charlie Conner's bunion.
While conducting research for his book Strangers in
High Places, Michael Frome interviewed Charlie on the particulars of that day. Evidently, Charlie had no recollection
of hobbling on a bunion resembling a rocky crag, but he did experience some sort of foot problem. Kephart, who promoted
the establishment of the park (and consequently sat on the committee establishing place names), jumped on the opportunity
to immortalize Conner and his ailment.
