Remember a few years ago when several hundred acres were taken from all U.S. citizens in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park so Cherokee could build a new high school? The tract of land was called Ravensford just behind the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. The new high school is now pretty much finished. You can see the eyesore roofs of the buildings and the parkings lots easily from the Blue Ridge Parkway near its terminus at Oconaluftee. The land was ceded to Cherokee by an act of Congress in an omnibus bill, in a provision inserted by former Rep. Charles Taylor. The Cherokee claimed they had no room to expand and build a new school due to the geography and being hemmed in by the National Park so they needed the National Park land.
From the Smoky Mountain News:
Workers are moving dirt to build Cherokee’s first golf course.
The course is being built on the former Smoky Mountain Raceway property along Shoals Creek Road, and Duvall says it will “surpass everything in this region.”
Golf course architects, Robert Trent Jones II, designed the Sequoyah National Golf Club. Construction costs for this project are not being released yet, Duvall Said.
The Tribe is also considering building a housing development near the golf course. Duvall said the houses would be for tribal members only.
Plans call for this facility to be completed in summer or fall of 2009.
Comments (4)
At least it took an act of Congress, where people can be held accountable, as opposed to the executive and bureacratic procedures which sell out parts of our national forests that aren't lucky enough to be explicitly designated as wilderness.
Not much of a silver lining, is it?
(and just wait until the plans for blazing a bypass of the Ocoee gorge get going for corridor K)
I'll note the irony of this story with my latest post: the (eastern) Cherokee learned the wrong lesson from being on the unjustified transfers of jurisidiction (or maybe the "right" lesson, from a cynic's point of view)
Posted by DSK | March 10, 2008 10:00 PM
Ya I thought about what happened to the Cherokee in the past, the taking of their land, the Trail of Tears, etc. and how history would relate to this issue. I guess if you start giving land back to the Cherokee now tho based on atrocities of the past, where do you stop? We would have a Trail of Tears for the current "owners" of the land, including the property we personally own in the region. The National Park land was everyone's land, including the Cherokee. Now it's a high school and parking lot. The reasons given for the cession of the Ravensford tract were lies. I can't wait to post what happens to the old school grounds, when it becomes some sort of million dollar tourist attraction.
Posted by fletch | March 11, 2008 2:53 AM
A freakin' GOLF COURSE? Puleeeez. DSK..please fill me in on what you're talking about in regards to the Ocoee....that's my favorite spot!
Posted by poopie | March 11, 2008 2:20 PM
poopie,
I think about every other month there's an article in the Chattanooga news about how some combination of Polk County politicos and developers want to get the Feds to either widen two-lane section of 64 or build a new four-lane bypass of the gorge section. I can only hope that the plans don't gain momentum.
I suppose a bypass would be better than destroying the gorge itself, but I can't see how they'd make any sort of bypass remotely close to the corridor without taking out swaths of wilderness.
Of course, I suspect the only people who'd really benefit from expanding 64 would be luxury home developers. I think commercial traffic has ample options already.
(And of course this is without going into how we need to be concentrating on rail infrastructure for cargo, rather than more routes for semis)
Posted by DSK | March 11, 2008 4:23 PM