Her pa would not be meeting her at the train in Townsend.  Mallie knew this because they had not spoken in the six years since he sent her away.  In the fall of 1906, he had sold their farm and gone to work as a logger for the Little River Lumber Company.

Her brother, Cole, also worked as a logger, as did so many of the people in the Smoky Mountains.  He had written to her often until the spring of that year when the letters had stopped.

The train from Knoxville had left early that morning stopping at the way station at Walland to switch the coach from the Southern Railway to an engine from the Little River Railroad. It continued its slow eight mile journey along the river until it reached the sawmill community of Townsend. 

Years had passed since Mallie’s last visit to Tuckaleechee Cove.  The place the Cherokees had named the peaceful valley was transformed into a bustling mill town that look nothing like Mallie remembered.

When W. B. Townsend and a group of investors from Pennsylvania purchased a hundred thousand acres of timberland along the Little River and its tributaries in 1901, they built the sawmill on the first flat place on the drainage of the Little River below the Forks.  Now, twelve years later, the screeching whine of the band saw in the mill, just east of where she stood, never stopped.  ….Mallie’s eyes scanned the mountains and heard them call to her above the sound of the band saw.  By tomorrow, she would be home.

As the train entered the gorge, the wheels shrilled a high-pitched scream as it took the curves.  The stream below laughed in replay as it bounded over huge boulders untamed and undisturbed by the crowds passing by.  The track laid the thirteen miles up the Little River gorge to Elkmont was complete by 1908 and soon after visitors discovered the now accessible beauty of the mountains and wanted to ride the train up.  The Little River Lumber Company began offering a special passenger excursion train to Elkmont.  On this Sunday, the coaches were full of passengers moving from one side of the car to the other not wanting to lose the view as the train crossed over the river.

When the train pulled into the track yard at Elkmont, it slowed to a stop and Mallie leapt up to get off.  Most of the passengers would be riding the train a short distance beyond Elkmont where they would swim and picnic for the day. 

Mallie was shocked to see that the town stretched for as far as she could see on both sides of the rail line.  The land cleared of trees was open and there were houses scattered everywhere. They had passed a post office and commissary and stopped at two small wood frame buildings connected by a walkway.  Over one, it read Elkmont and over the other read Hotel.  She thought it was probably the boarding house for company workers who did not have families.

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