The Walker Sisters: A True Appalachian Story

The Walker Sisters: A True Appalachian Story In 1940, the United States government drew a line on a map and told six sisters they had to leave the only home they'd ever known. They looked at that line — and said no. It took the government over a decade to get an answer out of them, and even then, it wasn't the one they wanted. This is the true story of the Walker sisters of Little Greenbrier Cove. Their story begins in 1865, when Civil War veteran John Walker returned home to Tennessee and built a farm from nothing in a narrow mountain valley. By 1909, that farm belonged to six of his unmarried daughters — Margaret, Martha, Nancy, Louisa, Hettie, and Polly — who ran it entirely on their own, with no husbands and no hired help. They farmed, spun their own wool, canned their own food, and lived almost completely off their own land. Then, in the 1920s, the government came for it. Great Smoky Mountains National Park was being carved out of the mountains, and the Walker farm sat right in the middle of it. While most families sold and left, the Walker sisters fought back — negotiating for years, refusing to be pushed off land their family had worked for three generations. In 1940, they finally struck a deal: they'd sell the farm, but keep a lifetime lease to live there until the last sister died. What followed was a strange final chapter — national magazine fame, curious strangers hiking out to meet them, and two sisters growing old together in a cabin the whole country had once tried to take from them. This is a story about land, family, and six women who refused to let go of either — even after they'd already lost the fight on paper. #walkersisters #appalachia #appalachians #smokymountains #appalachianfolk #appalachianhistory