Downtown Sevierville Blog

In 1865, the same year the Civil War ended, Archimedes M. “Art” Chambers built a mill and log mill dam on the east prong of the Little Pigeon River about 500 feet upstream from the confluence of the east and west prongs of the river.

When the Civil War erupted, William Holland Thomas felt the citizens in the isolated mountains of his native western North Carolina would fare better as part of the Confederacy than they had in the United States. He was appointed the rank Colonel in the Confederate Army and rallied companies of men to fight with him.