Large and small, donations made the park a reality | Sam Venable
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Mountain Musings: third of four parts
One of the most iconic sites in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the Rockefeller Memorial. No doubt you’ve seen photos of President Franklin D. Roosevelt speaking atop this landmark when he dedicated the park on Sept. 2, 1940.
Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the late 1930s, the two-tiered granite platform straddles the Tennessee-North Carolina border at Newfound Gap. It’s named after Laura Spelman Rockefeller, mother of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller Jr., and commemorates the $5 million donation he made to the park.
This generous gift was one of numerous philanthropic missions of the Rockefeller family. Had John Jr. not written the check, dreams of creating the park likely would have evaporated.
Money was tight in the late 1920s. Ten million bucks were needed to seal the deal. Even though legislatures in Tennessee and North Carolina had ponied up $2 million each for land acquisition, the drive sputtered in fits and starts. Rockefeller’s gift put it over the top.
What about the other $1 million?
As National Park Service annals attest, it came from “individuals, private groups and even school children who pledged their pennies.”
One of them was 14-year-old Granvil Kyker of Sevierville.
On March 16, 1926, he signed a pledge for $1 — “one-fifth in cash or within 30 days and the balance in three equal payments.” Alongside young Kyker’s signature is a checkoff box: “Paid with pledge $.20.”
I hold a copy of this document as we speak. Great Smokies archivist Michael Aday found it after I’d inquired about citizen participation in the fundraising effort. Through the wonders of the internet, I was able to locate and contact Kyker’s daughter.
“That sounds exactly like something my father would have done,” said 80-year-old Mirvine Tipton of Jefferson City. “He gave away money all his life. There’s no telling how many medical students he helped get through college.”
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Kyker’s story reads like a Horatio Alger novel: Rode a buggy to enter Carson-Newman College at age 15. Went on to earn his PhD in chemistry at the University of North Carolina. Taught at the UNC medical school, then returned to Tennessee as head of pre-clinical research for the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies, doing early analyses of radiation treatment for cancer. The remarkable man died in 1994.
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Make no mistake: way back when or today, $5 million is a fortune. But to a farm kid in 1926, so was $1.
In this season of giving, I can’t help but wonder which was the greater sacrifice and came deeper from the heart.
Sam Venable’s column appears every week. Contact him at sam.venable@outlook.com.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Large and small, donations made the park a reality | Sam Venable
