This collection houses articles, assessments, brochures, correspondence, magazines, maps, newsletters, newspaper articles, notes, minutes, plans, reports, photocopies, and more documenting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Great Smoky Mountains organizations, including the Great Smoky Mountain Park Commission and the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club. The collection is broken down into eight series: personal materials, publications, articles, plans, organizations, places, subjects, and miscellaneous materials. Most documents discussing specific places or subjects have been filed under the subseries for the place or subject in question. Within the subject series (Series VII) there are three subseries. Subseries A consists of legislative materials, materials on roads, and scientific research meetings. Subseries B covers specific Smoky Mountain subjects. Subseries C provides subject materials for areas outside the GSMNP region.

Correspondence has been interfiled with other subject materials. To search for the correspondence of a specific person, a researcher will need to examine the organizations or subject subseries related to their activities. The subseries on Roads and Wilderness houses a great deal of correspondence from Representatives and Senators. When appropriate, “see also” references have been given for folders that might prove helpful for further research on a particular place or topic.

If conducting research on roads in the area, a researcher should look at Subseries A, Subseries B, and Subseries C within Series VII. Within Subseries A, material on roads has been grouped together chronologically and documents roads within GSMNP and the surrounding region. The Road to Nowhere, the proposed trans-mountain road, and the Robbinsville-Tellico Plains road are all represented in these folders. One should also look in the wilderness subseries, as these issues often overlap.