Sen. Lamar Alexander on National Park’s 100th birthday

GATLINBURG, Tenn. (WDEF) – U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) celebrated the 100th birthday of the National Park Service’s 100th anniversary Thursday.

He hiked the Fighting Creek Nature Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with middle and high school students.

At a luncheon afterward celebrating Smokies’ employees, the senator said, “the beauty, magic and serenity of national parks provides a great way to celebrate what’s right with America.”

Alexander praised the work of the Smokies permanent and seasonal employees.

“Tennesseans feel a special pride in our Smokies because the people of Tennessee and North Carolina bought the land and gave it to the United States to create the park. Back then, a ranger wrote a memo identifying the wildlife he had found in this new park. There were 100 black bears. Today, there are about 1,500. Then, there were 315 wild turkeys. On some days now, I can see a couple of dozen strutting just outside our home in West Miller’s Cove two miles from the park boundary. In 1934, there were 12 whitetail deer in Tennessee and six in North Carolina. Today, they’re everywhere. Then, there were no river otters and no elk in the park, but they are both here today.

“There are other signs of progress. Today, acid rain laws are working, the air is cleaner, and the Friends of the Smokies, together with the Great Smoky Mountains Association, have contributed more than $85 million. In May, the park opened its new Collections Preservation Center, which will preserve artifacts, archival records and other important historical items.”

Congress established the United States National Park Service in 1916.

In 1984, during the 50th anniversary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Alexander played the piano with the Knoxville Symphony in Cades Cove.

Alexander said then that “the fiddles were tuned to sound like old bagpipes that Scottish people brought into the mountains 200 years ago.” Alexander and the symphony performed again in Cades Cove at the 75th anniversary of the park in 2009.