History of Pigeon Forge

Forge is now located as a hunting ground. A Cherokee footpath known as the Indian Gap Trail crossed the Great Smokes from North Carolina, and passed through the Pigeon Forge valley en route to its junction with the Great Indian Warpath in modern Sevierville (US-441 closely parallels this ancient trail, although it crests the mountains at New found Gap rather than Indian Gap). From Sevierville, the Warpath headed west toward the Over hill Cherokee towns along the Little Tennessee River.

The Indian Gap Trail brought the first Europeans to the Pigeon Forge area in the early 18th century. Along with hunters and trappers from North Carolina, traders from Virginia had passed through the valley before 1750. Sometime after 1783, Colonel Samuel Wear (1753–1817) became the first permanent Euro-American settler in the Pigeon Forge area. Wear, a veteran of the American Revolution, erected a small fort near the confluence of Walden Creek and the Little Pigeon River (what is now Pigeon Forge City Park). The fort provided a safe stopover for the early pioneers in the Sevier County area. Wear would later serve as a member of the committee that drafted Tennessee's state constitution.

In 1785, the Cherokee signed the Treaty of Dumplin Creek, ceding much of what is now Sevier County to the United States. Among the first to take advantage of this was Robert Shields (1740–1802), who received a survey for a tract of land in the Pigeon Forge area from the Watauga Land Office in 1786. Shields, who like Wear were a veteran of the Revolution, established a small fort along Middle Creek (near what is now Dollywood). Shields' son would later write that the fort was 100 feet (30 m) long and 16 feet (4.9 m) wide, with 12-foot (3.7 m) walls constructed with "heavy logs." The fort contained living quarters for six families, with a common kitchen at