Horace Kephart, a pivotal figure in the history of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, is featured in Ken Burns' new PBS series about the national parks, America's Best Idea.

GSMA's newest book, Smoky Mountain Magic, a novel by Horace Kephart. Although completed in 1929, two years before the author’s death, the novel was never published until now.

"Is Kephart's novel entertaining? Yes, it is. ... What better topic than a journey into a forbidden realm, complete with witches, robber barons, noble savages and a winsome lady, all wrapped in a cloak of mystery and myth?", asks Gary Carden in his Smoky Mountain News review.

The famed author and outdoorsman first came to the Great Smoky Mountains in 1904 looking for a fresh start in life. He moved into an abandoned cabin on a tributary of Hazel Creek, a remote area even by early 20^th century southern Appalachian standards. There Kephart befriended his independent and self-reliant neighbors and pursued his passions for hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, and generally living off the land. The result of his time in what he described as the “back of beyond” were Our Southern Highlanders, the classic work on the people of the Smokies, Cherokees of the Smokies, Camp Cookery, and Camping and Woodcraft, the definitive work on enjoying the out of doors. Both works are still in print and continue to nurture an enthusiastic following.

During the 1920s, Kephart and his friend and fellow hiker George Masa began a vigorous campaign to have the Great Smoky Mountains protected as a national park. Kephart wrote letters, articles, and a booklet championing the cause, and Masa contributed his breath-taking landscape photographs. Together they raised awareness of the significance and beauty of the Smokies and sounded the alarm over the devastation being caused by unsound, industrial logging operations. Both Kephart and Masa figure prominently in the Smoky Mountains segment of the new Ken Burns series on PBS, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.

“Why should future generations be robbed of all chance to see with their own eyes what a real forest, a real wildwood, a real unimproved work of God, is like,” Kephart wrote.  For their successful effort, both Kephart and Masa have neighboring mountains named for them. A stream, trail, and camping shelter in the national park also bear Kephart’s name.

The manuscript for Smoky Mountain Magic was handed down within the Kephart family until it was finally brought to the attention of park superintendent Dale Ditmanson by Libby Kephart Hargrave at one of this year’s 75^th anniversary celebrations. The typewritten manuscript was complete, having gone through numerous drafts and revisions over the course of the eight years that Horace Kephart labored over it.

Smoky Mountain Magic’s fictional story takes place during the summer of 1925, mostly along the Deep Creek watershed in the Great Smoky Mountains, but also in a thinly-disguised Bryson City (called Kittuwa) and the Cherokee Indian Reservation. Characters include a mysterious stranger (who resembles the author in his youth), a greedy land baron, a cadre of mountain folk ranging in constitution from stalwart to conniving, a beautiful botanist, a Cherokee chief, and a witch. The novel fits the adventure story genre of the day with a bit of romance interwoven.

"Horace Kephart's literary legacy has previously centered on Our Southern Highlanders, but Smoky Mountain Magic proves that he was a gifted novelist as well.  Kephart's keen ear for the nuances of Appalachian speech makes this entertaining tale of love and adventure a remarkable and illuminating read."  Ron Rash, author of Serena, One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, Eureka Mill, and many other award-winning books of fiction and poetry.

"Reading Horace Kephart's astute observations in Smoky Mountain Magic of the complexities of social interaction between mountain whites, the Cherokee, and growing numbers of outsiders, his vivid descriptions of the mountain environment, along with some unexpectedly romantic twists and turns, is like digging up a time capsule from the 1920s."  Daniel Pierce, Chairman of the History Department, University of North Carolina at Asheville.

For lots more information on Horace Kephart and his new book, Smoky Mountain Magic, click on the links below.