This Tiny Town in Tennessee Has More Scarecrows Than People

Stacey Leasca

Gatlinburg, Tennessee isn’t messing around when it comes to world records. The quaint little town bordering the Great Smoky Mountains is on a mission to break one. And not just any old record: It wants to break the record for the highest number of scarecrows in a single town.

According to USA Today, the previous record for the number of scarecrows in a single town was 3,812. It was held by the National Forest Adventure Farm in the United Kingdom. However, Gatlinburg knew it could do better. So, on Monday, three officials from the Gatlinburg Convention and Visitors Bureau went around and counted an astounding 4,325 scarecrows in town. And that’s in a community with a mere 4,100 human residents, meaning the scarecrows now outnumber the humans.

Courtesy of Gatlinburg Convention and Visitors Bureau
Courtesy of Gatlinburg Convention and Visitors Bureau

"A couple of years ago, we expanded our fall decorations to include these really cute scarecrows," Marci Claude, public relations manager for Gatlinburg, told WATE-TV. "We set those up all over town for people to take pictures and create memories with and so this year we decided we would amp up our scarecrow presence and really just go for the world record."

%image1

To actually clench the record, the town had to abide by a number of Guinness World Record rules. For example, all the scarecrows had to have “human features” and all the scarecrows had to be located in a walkable area of downtown Gatlinburg.

"There's all kinds of official rules, and we have followed these to the T, so we are excited, but it is a Guinness record, and they hold their rules and they hold their standards at the highest level, so we are excited to see where we come in with this," Chad Netherland, director of marketing and public relations for the bureau, told USA Today.

Truly, this was a team effort by the people of Gatlinburg, who all came together for the last two weeks to deck out their town with scarecrows on every corner.

"It's good to see involvement from all the business communities," Netherland added. "They all participated, and it looks beautiful."

Want to see them for yourself? According to Netherland, the decorations will stay up through the end of October. At that time, the town will switch to holiday decorations. No word yet on how many Santas it plans to put up.