Our Southern Highlanders: A Narrative of Adventure in the Southern Appalachians and a Study of Life Among the Mountaineers is a book written by American author Horace Kephart (1862–1931), first published in 1913 and revised in 1922. Inspired by the years Kephart spent among the inhabitants of the remote Hazel Creek region of the Great Smoky Mountains, the book provides one of the earliest realistic portrayals of life in the rural Appalachian Mountains and one of the first serious analyses of Appalachian culture. While modern historians and writers have criticized Our Southern Highlanders for focusing too much on sensationalistic aspects of mountain culture, the book was an important departure from the previous century's local color writings and their negative distortions of mountain people.
Setting
Hazel Creek originates on the slopes of Silers Bald in the Great Smoky Mountains and drops over its route to the Little Tennessee River, draining much of the southwestern part of the range along the way. The village of Medlin was located where modern Haw Gap Branch ("Haw Creek" on old maps) empties into Hazel Creek (the townsite is now Campsite 84 at the junction of Jenkins Ridge Trail and the Hazel Creek Trail). Kephart's cabin was located along Little Fork, a tributary of Sugar Fork, the latter in turn being a tributary of Haw Gap Branch. In 1904, the nearest railroad depot was away at Bushnell, a small town at the confluence of the Tuckasegee River and the Little Tennessee (now submerged by Fontana Lake).
Part of Our Southern Highlanders takes place atop the main crest of the Western Smokies between Gregory Bald and Silers Bald, which at the time was coated by a series of highland meadows used as livestock pastures during the growing season when bottomlands were needed for crops. Each pasture had a respective cabin for its summertime herdsman, namely (from west to east) the Russell cabin at what is now Russell Field, the Spencer cabin at what is now Spence Field, Hall cabin atop what is now Big Chestnut Bald (in the vicinity of the modern Derrick Knob shelter), and a cabin at Siler's Meadow (just off the summit of Silers Bald). The Hall cabin mentioned often by Kephart should not be confused with the Hall cabin presently located at the end of the Bone Valley Trail, although both were built by Jesse "Crate" Hall.
Background
Kephart was born in Pennsylvania, although his family moved to Iowa when he was still a child. Iowa was still very sparsely populated at the time, allowing Kephart to gain a lifelong appreciation for pioneer life. Kephart was trained as a librarian at Cornell University, and in 1890 was named head librarian at the St. Louis Mercantile Library. Although a successful librarian, Kephart eventually became disenchanted with his homelife and job in the early 1900s, started drinking more often, and began spending more and more time in the nearby Ozark wilderness. In 1903, he separated from his wife, and the following year suffered a nervous breakdown.
While recuperating at his father's home in Dayton, Ohio, Kephart used a map to seek out the nearest substantial wilderness area, which he determined to be the Great Smoky Mountains, a rugged range straddling the border between Tennessee and North Carolina. In August 1904, he moved to North Carolina with plans to venture into the range.
After a short stay in Dillsboro, Kephart secured usage of a cabin at an abandoned copper mine in the Hazel Creek Valley in the southwest corner of the Great Smokies range. On October 30, 1904, he arrived at Bushnell very ill (suffering from tuberculosis and possibly alcohol withdrawal). He was met at Bushnell by legendary bear hunter Granville Calhoun (1875–1978), and the two made a muleback trek to Calhoun's house in the hamlet of Medlin, near the middle of the Hazel Creek Valley. After recovering, Kephart moved on to his new cabin (just north of Medlin), where he lived until 1907. Kephart then spent several years traveling around Southern Appalachia before permanently settling in Bryson City, North Carolina, in 1910.