Pigeon Forge, Tennessee

Pigeon Forge is a mountain resort city in Sevier County, Tennessee, located in the southeastern United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 5,875.

Situated just five miles (8 km) north of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Pigeon Forge is a tourist destination that caters primarily to Southern culture and country music fans. The city's attractions include Dollywood, as well as numerous gift shops, outlet malls, amusement rides, and music theaters.

History

Early history

The name "Pigeon Forge" comes from an iron forge built by Isaac Love (1783–1854) sometime around 1820. The name of this forge referred to its location along the Little Pigeon River, in the vicinity of what is now the Old Mill. The name of the river comes from the flocks of passenger pigeons that frequented its banks at the time of the first Euro-American settlers' arrival.

For centuries, the Cherokee used the valley where Pigeon Forge is now located as a hunting ground. A Cherokee footpath known as the "Indian Gap Trail" crossed the Great Smokies from North Carolina, and passed through the Pigeon Forge valley en route to its junction with the Great Indian Warpath in modern Sevierville (US-441 closely parallels this ancient trail, although it crests the mountains at Newfound Gap rather than Indian Gap). From Sevierville, the Warpath headed west toward the Overhill Cherokee towns along the Little Tennessee River.

Mountain coaster

A mountain coaster or alpine coaster is a gravity driven amusement ride with bobsled-like cars on tracks installed on a mountain. It is similar to alpine slides where a low-wheeled sled is used to navigate the track, but instead of running over a smooth concave tracks like the alpine slide, alpine coasters run on rails with up-stop wheels like roller coasters. Thus, an alpine coaster is safer and faster than an alpine slide, as it is prevented from overturning when going too fast on a curve. Tracks are tubular rails, like a steel roller coasters, while some have monorail-type tracks. Unlike a roller coaster, the rider has the capability to control the car's speed with its rider-controlled brake system. Alpine coasters can also operate year-round, even through light rain and snow.

Safety features, speed, tracks and layout vary by manufacturer. Leading makers of mountain coasters (with trade marks in parenthesis) include Wiegand (Alpine Coaster), Brandauer (Summer Toboggan), Alpine Products (Alpine Mountain Coaster), and Erbschloe Fun Construct (Rolba Bob).

Forge

A forge is a type of hearth used for heating metals, or the workplace (smithy) where such a hearth is located. The forge is used by the smith to heat a piece of metal to a temperature where it becomes easier to shape by forging, or to the point where work hardening no longer occurs. The metal (known as the "workpiece") is transported to and from the forge using tongs, which are also used to hold the workpiece on the smithy's anvil while the smith works it with a hammer. Sometimes such as when hardening steel or cooling the work so that it may be handled with bare hands; the workpiece is transported to the slack tub, which rapidly cools the workpiece in a large body of water. The slack tub also provides water to control the fire in the forge.

Types of forges

Coal/coke/charcoal forge

A forge typically uses bituminous coal, industrial coke or charcoal as the fuel to heat metal. The designs of these forges have varied over time, but whether the fuel is coal, coke or charcoal the basic design has remained the same.

Common name

In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, trivial name, trivial epithet, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; this kind of name is often contrasted with the scientific name for the same organism, which is Latinized. A so-called "common name" is sometimes frequently used, but that is by no means always the case.

Sometimes common names are created by authorities on one particular subject, in an attempt to make it possible for members of the general public (including such interested parties as fishermen, farmers, etc.) to be able to refer to one particular species of organism without needing to be able to memorise or pronounce the Latinized scientific name. Creating an "official" list of common names can also be an attempt to standardize the use of common names, which can sometimes vary a great deal between one part of a country and another, as well as between one country and another country, even where the same language is spoken in both places.

Smoky Mountain

Smoky Mountain is an adjective for things related to the Great Smoky Mountains (as in the Smoky Mountain National Park) and may refer to the following landforms:

See also