The Ephraim Bales Place

The Ephraim Bales Place. Great Smokey Mountains National Park. , It would be difficult to find a better place to imagine mountain life than this. Picture yourself growing up here as one of Ephraim and Minerva Bales' nine children. Look around. This was your world. Imagine yourself and 10 others living in this small cabin., Ephraim Bales owned 72 acres here. He farmed 30; the rest remained wooded. This was like many farms along the Roaring Fork, where families scratched a hard living from a very rocky land., The Ephraim Bales house is one of more than 80 historic buildings preserved in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Each stands as a memory to those who built it. Historic buildings like this are national treasures. Once lost, they can never be regained., [Captions:] , Minerva "Nervy" Bales, circa 1930. Ephraim had died around 1926. The Bales family lived here from about 1890 to about 1930., Notice the boards on the wall on the right side of the photo. As families were able, they covered their homes with siding and often built frame additions., The Bales home around 1925. The photo was taken from the other side of the house, which historically, was the front. You are facing the back., The two halves were probably built at different times around 1890-1900. The larger half was the living area; the smaller, the kitchen., The structures on the site today are original, but not all of the original buildings survived. At one time there was a wood shed, and possibly other structures., The Bales Place, circa 1930, looking back this way from the hill beyond the house. The old road passed between the barn and the house. Notice the openness of the land, which Ephraim Bales once farmed., As you explore the house, try to find this "granny hole," the cabin's only window. Doors and windows were small, and few, to conserve heat and minimize cutting structural logs., Please do not carve on, write on, or otherwise deface or damage any historic structure. Report vandalism to a park ranger or at a visitor center. Penalties for violators are severe.