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Bryson City Conserves 750 acres Bordering National Park

On June 9 the Town of Bryson City conveyed a conservation easement to the State of North Carolina which protects 750 acres along with four and a quarter miles of boundary with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Under the terms of the conservation agreement, the Lands Creek Tract can never be subdivided nor developed although the town will continue to own the land and be able to use it for recreational purposes and for future water supply. The Town received over $1.8 million dollars in the sale of the easement to the State with funding coming from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund coupled with a gift from Fred and Alice Stanback.

L-R: Larry Callicutt, Town Manager Bryson City, Sharon Fouts Taylor, LTLT Land Protection Coordinator, T. L. Jones, Mayor of Bryson City, and Fred Moody, Town of Bryson City Attorney

“I like looking out this window at that mountain land knowing that future mayors will be able to enjoy the same unspoiled view without roads and houses scarring those steep slopes,” said T.L. Jones, the Mayor of Bryson City who signed the conservation agreement. Mr. Jones said that over the years that he has served on the Town Board there has always been a desire on the part of the Board to figure out how to conserve this property. The grant from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund made it possible while generating needed revenue for the town coffers.

Bryson City acquired the property on Lands Creek eighty years ago to protect the town’s drinking water supply. In the mid-1980’s the Town moved its water intake facilities to Deep Creek in order to meet the increasing demand for drinking water, thus leaving the Lands Creek tract as surplus municipal property. Although dominated by steep slopes with high risk of landslides, in recent years the Town had been approached by private parties interested in acquiring the land for development. The Lands Creek Tract is thought to have been the largest, single unprotected property bordering the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina.

In the spring of 2002 the Town partnered with the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee and the Conservation Fund to search for funding to support a conservation solution for the land which would bring needed equity to Bryson City. The Land Trust helped the Town to secure funding from the NC Clean Water Management Trust Fund while the Conservation Fund helped raise private matching funds.

“This is a visionary decision on the part of the Town Board of Bryson City,” stated Paul Carlson, Director of the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee. “They knew that steep-slope development on Lands Creek was not in the public interest so they chose to protect the watershed while bringing much needed revenue to the Town.” The Land Trust will serve as the local partner for the State in the future monitoring of the conservation agreement.

Bill Gibson the Director of the Southwestern Regional Commission who played a key role in the successful conservation of the Needmore Tract was also instrumental in helping to conserve Lands Creek. Gibson stated, “Over the past century since the founding of our National Forests, and the past 75 years since the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the increase in population growth and development pressures on the land have made it essentially as difficult to conserve 1000 acres in these mountains today, as it was to conserve 100,000 acres a century ago. Those who made the Lands Creek project succeed displayed the same will power, the same set of values, and the same passion for the land that were the hallmark of our conservation forefathers such as Teddy Roosevelt and Horace Kephart.”