Tennessee’s highest peak just got its Cherokee name back after 165 years

Kuwohi’s long-overdue homecoming

You’ve probably heard of Clingmans Dome. But you may not know that it got a new name in September 2024, one that’s actually much older.

The Cherokee people called this mountain Kuwohi for centuries before it was renamed after a Confederate general in 1859.

At 6,643 feet, it’s the highest point in Tennessee and the third highest peak east of the Mississippi River. On a clear day, you can see 100 miles from the top.

Getting there takes about 20 minutes, and the view changes everything.

The spiral tower that looks like it landed from outer space

The first thing you notice at the summit isn’t the view. It’s the tower.

A 45-foot concrete structure spirals upward in a tight circular ramp, and from below, it looks like something that belongs at a world’s fair, not a mountaintop in the Smokies.

Built in 1959, it was designed by Gatlinburg architect Hubert Bebb. The ramp climbs at a 12 percent grade and runs 375 feet from bottom to top.

The observation platform at the crown is 28 feet across.

Cantilevered signs point out peaks for miles around

From the platform, the mountains roll out in every direction.

You can pick out Gregory Bald, Blockhouse Mountain and Thunderhead Mountain from the cantilevered signs bolted to the railing.

On most days, haze keeps the visibility down to around 20 miles, but even then the stacked ridges stretch out below you in layers. On a clear morning after rain, that distance opens up to 100 miles.

Sunrise hits the platform with nothing between you and the horizon but cold air and the spruce canopy below.

A Mission 66 design that stirred up a real argument

The tower was part of Mission 66, a National Park Service program that ran from 1955 to 1966 to rebuild and expand park facilities after World War II. When the concrete tower went up, some people hated it.

Critics called it too urban, too modern, too out of place in a national park. It replaced a wooden tower that had been torn down back in 1950.

The modern design was a sharp turn from the rustic log-and-stone style of older park buildings, and not everyone was ready for that.

One of only nine observation towers the program ever built

Mission 66 put up hundreds of structures across the country, but only nine of them were observation towers. Kuwohi’s tower ended up being the blueprint.

Two later towers followed its design, one at Look Rock along the Foothills Parkway in the Smokies and another at the Shark Valley Observation Tower in Everglades National Park.

The tower earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. In 2017 and 2018, crews repaired years of weather damage to the concrete and the ramp.

A forest that belongs closer to Canada than to Tennessee

The half-mile paved trail to the tower passes through a Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest. This type of forest doesn’t belong here by most ecological logic.

It has more in common with the forests of Maine and Canada than with the valleys you drove through to get here.

You’ll see dead Fraser fir trees along the trail, killed by a non-native insect called the balsam woolly adelgid.

The forest sits in cloud and mist much of the time, and on most mornings the trees disappear into the fog before you reach the top.

The Appalachian Trail’s single highest point runs right through here

Thru-hikers walking the entire 2,190-mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine pass directly over this summit.

At 6,643 feet, Kuwohi is the highest point on the whole route, and the trail crosses just north of the tower. Most thru-hikers stop long enough to take in the view before moving on.

If you want to reach the summit when Kuwohi Road is closed between Dec. 1 and March 31, the trail from Newfound Gap, about 7.5 miles away, is one of the few ways up on foot.

The Cherokee name that came back after 165 years

For the Cherokee people, this mountain has always been Kuwohi, meaning “mulberry place.” It’s the highest point within their traditional homeland, and it carries deep cultural significance.

In 1859, geographer Arnold Guyot renamed it after Thomas Clingman, a North Carolina senator who later fought for the Confederacy. The name Clingmans Dome held for 165 years.

In 2022, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians members Lavita Hill and Mary Crowe pushed to restore the original name. The U.S. Board of Geographic Names made it official in September 2024.

Andrews Bald sits just over three miles from the parking area

If you want more than the tower, the Forney Ridge Trail starts near the Kuwohi parking area and leads to Andrews Bald, a high-elevation grassy meadow with wide mountain views in every direction. It’s one of only two maintained grassy balds in the park.

The round trip runs about 3.6 miles and the trail is rated moderate.

Several other trails branch off from the Kuwohi Road area, so you have options if you want to spend a full day up here instead of just an hour at the tower.

Pack a jacket even if it’s 80 degrees in Gatlinburg

The summit runs 10 to 20 degrees cooler than the valleys below. In summer, that can mean 50s on a warm day.

In any season, the wind at the top bites. Rain and clouds show up without warning at this elevation, and the cool, wet conditions keep the air damp enough that some compare it to a coniferous rainforest.

Layers matter no matter when you come. The mountain doesn’t care what the forecast said at breakfast.

An EPA station tracks air quality from near the summit

An Environmental Protection Agency air quality monitoring station sits close to the top of Kuwohi, ranking as the second highest air quality station in eastern North America.

It exists because air pollution has long eaten into the visibility from the tower.

Haze has been the chronic problem here for decades, and the monitoring station tracks how air quality trends across the Southern Appalachians shift over time.

Even on hazy days, the layered ridges visible from the platform give the view its depth.

More than 650,000 people make it to the summit every year

Kuwohi draws around 650,000 visitors a year, which makes it one of the busiest spots in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, already the most visited national park in the country.

The park holds annual Kuwohi Connection Days, closing the road on select mornings so Cherokee students and elders can visit the sacred summit for cultural education.

The visitor center and park store near the trailhead are staffed by the Great Smoky Mountains Association and open through the season.

Plan your visit to Great Smoky Mountains National Park

To reach Kuwohi, take the seven-mile Kuwohi Road off Newfound Gap Road. The road opens April 1 and closes Nov. 30 each year.

A parking tag is required: $5 for a daily pass, $15 for weekly, or $40 for an annual pass. The park itself has no entrance fee.

The visitor center opens at 9:30 a.m. daily. The half-mile paved trail to the tower is steep and not wheelchair accessible, though benches line the path. Pets and bikes aren’t allowed on the trail, so plan accordingly.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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