The Davis House at the Mountain Farm Museum in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Cherokee, North Carolina

Photos by Cheryl Landes

The Mountain Farm Museum and Mingus Mill in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Cherokee, North Carolina, provides a glimpse into how families lived and worked more than a century ago.

Mountain Farm Museum

This outdoor museum consists of historic log buildings collected throughout the Smoky Mountains and preserved at one site. The buildings include a house John Davis built with chestnut wood in 1900, barn, applehouse, springhouse, smokehouse, and blacksmith shop.

Mingus Mill

Mingus Mill, built in 1856, ground corn into meal and wheat into flour for a mountain community near Mingus Creek for more than 50 years. A small steel turbine provided power to run the mill’s grinding stones and machinery instead of a water wheel. The National Park Service restored the mill in 1968, and it operates during the summer as a historical exhibit.

Two trails start in the area. The Oconaluftee River Trail, an easy walk that’s accessible by stroller, starts near the entrance to the museum and follows the river to the town of Cherokee, North Carolina. The Mingus Creek Trail is steeper, passing old farms to the high country in the Smokies.