Ahh the curse of the enlightened leftists.
After the Park was formed, they could not wait to bulldoze every building there. Prmitive backwoods folks didn’t have anything worth preserving and their flea ridden cabins were blights on the land.
Belatedly they realized that human habitation was an essential part of the Park’s story and they saved some buildings and relocated more, some from outside the park.
I can’t wait to see what they end up doing at Elkmont. They COULD restore those homes and rent them generating jobs and income. But they want to destroy many of them and leave some as curiosities.
I'd like to see them restored myself. Last pictures I saw a couple years back they were degrading pretty fast. That is one thing I do like about Tennessee State Parks is many of the parks have affordable to about anyone cabins. Some of us folks who love the mountains just ain't physically capable of the climb to Mt LeConte.