Editing Sevier County, Tennessee (section)

==History==
Prior to the arrival of white settlers in present-day Sevier County in the mid-18th century, the area had been inhabited for as many as 20,000 years by nomadic and semi-nomadic [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]]. In the mid-16th century, Spanish expeditions led by [[Hernando de Soto (explorer)|Hernando de Soto]] (1540) and [[Juan Pardo (explorer)|Juan Pardo]] (1567) passed through what is now Sevier County, reporting that the region was part of the domain of [[Chiaha]], a minor [[Muskogean language|Muskogean]] chiefdom centered around a village located on a now-submerged island just upstream from modern [[Douglas Dam]]. By the late 17th-century, however, the [[Cherokee]], whose ancestors were living in the mountains at the time of the Spaniards' visit, had become the dominant tribe in the region. Although they used the region primarily as hunting grounds, the [[Chickamauga Cherokee|Chicakamauga]] faction of the Cherokee vehemently fought white settlement in their territory, frequently leading raids on households, even through the signing of various peace treaties, alternating short periods of peace with violent hostility, until forcibly marched from their territory by the U.S. government on the "[[Trail of Tears]]".<ref>[http://www.nps.gov/trte/ Trail of Tears], National Park Service. Retrieved: March 29, 2013.</ref>

Sevier County was formed on September 18, 1794, from part of neighboring [[Jefferson County, Tennessee|Jefferson County]], and has retained its original boundaries ever since. The county takes its name from [[John Sevier]], governor of the failed [[State of Franklin]] and first governor of Tennessee, who played a prominent role during the early years of settlement in the region.<ref>[http://www.state.tn.us/sos/bluebook/online/section5/counties.pdf Origins of Tennessee County Names], ''Tennessee Blue Book'', 2005, p. 512.</ref> Since its establishment in 1795, the county seat has been situated at Sevierville (also named for Sevier), the eighth-oldest city in Tennessee.

Sevier County was strongly pro-Union during the Civil War. When Tennessee held a vote on the state's Ordinance of Secession on June 8, 1861, Sevier Countians voted 1,528 to 60 in favor of remaining in the Union.<ref>Oliver Perry Temple, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=g8xYAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22The+detailed+vote+of+the+several+counties+was+as+follows%22&pg=PA199 East Tennessee and the Civil War]'' (R. Clarke Company, 1899), p. 199.</ref>  In November 1861, William C. Pickens, Sheriff of Sevier County, led a failed attempt to destroy the railroad bridge at [[Strawberry Plains, Tennessee|Strawberry Plains]] as part of the [[East Tennessee bridge-burning conspiracy]].<ref>Temple, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=g8xYAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22C.+Pickens%2C+of+Sevier+county%2C+was+the+leader+selected%22&pg=PA381 East Tennessee and the Civil War]'', pp. 381-383.</ref>

Prior to the late 1930s, Sevier County's population, economy, and society, which relied primarily on [[subsistence agriculture]], held little significance vis-à-vis any other county in the rural South. However, with the creation of the [[Great Smoky Mountains National Park]] in the early 1930s, the future of Sevier County (within which lies thirty percent of the total area of the national park) changed drastically. Today, tourism supports the county's economy.