14 Facts About Horace Kephart

Horace Sowers Kephart was an American travel writer and librarian, best known as the author of Our Southern Highlanders and the classic outdoors guide Camping and Woodcraft.

Horace Kephart was the director of the St Louis Mercantile Library in St Louis from 1890 to 1903; during these years Kephart wrote about camping and hunting trips.

In 1904, Kephart's family moved to Ithaca, New York, without him, but Laura and Horace never divorced or legally separated.

Horace Kephart found his way to western North Carolina, where he lived in the Hazel Creek section of what would later become the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Later in life Horace Kephart campaigned for the establishment of a national park in the Great Smoky Mountains with photographer and friend George Masa, and lived long enough to know that the park would be created.

Horace Kephart was later named one of the fathers of the national park.

Horace Kephart helped plot the route of the Appalachian Trail through the Smokies.

Horace Kephart died in a car accident in 1931 and was buried near Bryson City, North Carolina, a small town near the area he wrote about in Our Southern Highlanders.

Two months before his death, Mount Horace Kephart was named in his honor.

Horace Kephart is brother to that good old friend of mine who in gentle satire of our formal gardens and close- cropped lawns, was wont to say, 'I love the unimproved works of God.

Horace Kephart published other books of the same theme such as Camp Cookery and Sporting Firearms.

Horace Kephart wrote The Hunting Rifle section of Guns, Ammunition and Tackle, a volume of Caspar Whitney's prestigious American Sportsman's Library.

In 1925, Horace Kephart wrote a long editorial explaining why the Smoky Mountains should be recognized as a national park.

Horace Kephart later wrote and published a short history of the Cherokee and other books which became standards in the field.