Horace Kephart: Revealing an Enigma
http://www.wcu.edu/library/DigitalCollections/Kephart/index.htm
Born 1862 in Pennsylvania, Horace Kephart was the director of the Mercantile Library in St. Louis. He loved the outdoors and hunting and camping. In 1904, he moved to the North Carolina Mountains and took an immediate interest in the history and culture of the people. He became a leading literary figure in North Carolina and is renowned for his classic works “Our Southern Highlanders” and “Camping and Woodcraft”. Kephart felt that the development of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was important and he was influential in convincing individuals on both the local and national levels of the need for such a park.
In 2004, the Hunter Library at Western Carolina University celebrated the 100th anniversary of Horace Kephart’s arrival in North Carolina. Kephart’s personal album is the centerpiece of the exhibit. The virtual album on the website contains all 80 pages which include photographs, pictures of artifacts, copies of letters, advertisements, pages from his books, and other primary sources.
