Vandals in Cades Cove

By Brandon Jones

Scattered amid the pastoral landscape of the Cades Cove Loop Road are chancres of the insidious plague of vandalism, reminders of why humankind seems to fall as it rises. The colorful and at times deeply engraved scribbles are like the markings of dogs on trees, but no need to leave a scent when you can leave your whole name and the date you marked it.
According to Park statistics, there are 342 structures within Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In Cades Cove there are 78 historic structures, and I gamble with no reluctance each has fallen under the pen or knife of some half-bred dilettante who manages to surprise us all by spelling his or her name correctly. Due to the Great Smoky Mountains having become a billion-dollar tourism machine, we do not often hear about this downside to the nine million tourists swarming the park each year.
As Park Service ranger Kent Looney explained, there are too few rangers to deter vandals. “This is a crime of opportunity,” said Looney. He estimates “roughly half a dozen people each year are caught.” A quick glance around any building in Cades Cove provides signatures and dates of the majority of vandals who do not get caught
The Park erected signs, many of which are now decorated with ink, to encourage visitors to respect John and Elijah Oliver, Henry Whitehead and Dan Lawson’s hand-built homes and dreams. The focus is right, but it is simply too weak an effort to convince spoiled degenerates of the modern age not to write or carve their names into walls, ceilings or floors of structures older than their known ancestry.
Sadly, it is not just the young who deface historic structures. One ranger told me he once accosted an elderly woman scratching her name into the collection on one of the walls in John Oliver’s cabin. She was apprehended but released, perhaps a nod to the recurring sense of futility lurking beneath such a minuscule victory.
Perhaps if the Park Service hung skeletons in old home sites with a sign around their neck imploring visitors to uphold our nation’s heritage, the message would get through the vandals’ defective brain wiring. Unlike other solutions to the problem, at least that one would not break the Park’s already strained budget.
“Vandalism won’t change,” Ranger Looney said, “until people’s perceptions change.” Meanwhile, you can call the Park’s general information number and hear “I didn’t know Cades Cove had a vandalism problem,” as the woman who answered when I called said.
Until that ever-so-vital paradigm shift occurs, keep your pens capped and knives sheathed, and enjoy your next visit to Great Smoky Mountains National Park.