I explored an abandoned resort town in the Great Smoky Mountains, where the wealthy vacationed a century ago

• The last thing I expected to find in Great Smoky Mountains National Park was a resort town.
• It was abandoned in the late 1900s, but its 100-year-old cabins still stand.
• I stepped inside the empty vacation homes and found eerie remnants of a past era.

Elkmont Historic District is in a valley on the northern border of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

I began my trip to Elkmont by reading about its history.

When the National Park Service bought the land in 1934, the resort town diminished.

Looking out the windows of these historic cabins, I thought about what it would have been like to vacation here a century ago.

I pictured a shaded summer, waking up to natural views, and stepping outside to enjoy a cup of coffee with no agenda. It seemed like an ideal getaway for city dwellers like me.

On my way out of Elkmont, I spotted families wandering the street. This made me think that the site is no longer the ghost town it once was.

I left Elkmont with a sense of what the once-abandoned resort community was like and felt grateful to the preservation crew for making it possible for me to visit.