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LeConte Lodge
 


The Calloway Family
and
Dr. Calloway

 

 

The following is my recollection and may be dimmed over the years. 

The Calloway family from Maryville, TN, were good friends with the Browns who owned LeConte Lodge for several years.  The Calloway's were physicians.  They also supported Berea College, Berea, KY; as I recall, several Calloway's graduated from Berea. 

Each year several members of the Calloway family would hike up LeConte on 30 or 31 December, spend New Year's Eve at the Lodge, and return home on 1 or 2 January.  Brownie and some of us who worked at the Lodge would go up a couple of days ahead of time to open the Lodge, repair any damage, and get ready for the guests.  Remember -- the Lodge is open from early May to late October and is closed up tight October through May. 

Brownie called me in November 1964 and asked if I would go up and open the Lodge for the Calloway's in December.  I went up the mountain with Joe Serviss,  a friend of mine from college (I was a student at Jacksonville State University, Jacksonville, AL, at the time).  As I recall, two or three other folks joined us -- one may have been Bob Rusk -- and we opened the Lodge. 

The Calloway's came up LeConte on the Boulevard Trail from Newfound Gap.  On this particular trip in late December 1964, Doctor ????  Calloway -- the family patriarch -- left Newfound Gap with several family members accompanying him.  He complained of shortness of breath; two family members stopped alongside the trail with him and the rest of the family continued up the mountain.

After the family arrived at the Lodge -- without Dr. Calloway and the two who stayed with him -- we became concerned about his condition.  The phone was out, however, Brownie had left a small ham radio station in the cabin where the crew slept.  We managed to get the old Onan generator started and turned on the ham radio station.  I am a ham operator;  I contacted a ham operator in Knoxville; he telephoned the Park Service HQ in Gatlinburg where he learned that Dr. Calloway had died of a heart attack on the trail.

The family members who were at the Lodge decided to eat supper then go down the trail after dark -- with several inches of snow on the ground.  We arranged with the Park Service for rangers to meet us on the Alum Cave Trail.  So -- several of us from the Lodge and the Calloway family members started down Alum Cave Trail well after dark, carrying Coleman gas lanterns and flashlights.  Just before we reached the Alum Cave Bluffs, we met a party of Park Rangers coming up; the Calloway family went back down with the Rangers and we returned to the Lodge.

 

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LeConte Lodge Site Table of Contents

Photo album
Brief history of LeConte Lodge
 Joe's LeConte stories
Reverend A. Rufus Morgan 
Gracie McNicol: 244 times up LeConte
 Links to other sites
LeConte Lodge in winter
LeConte Llama Wrangler Retires After Ten Years
(Nov 2011)
Suggested reading
How to submit your articles for publication. 

 

 

 

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