Elijah Oliver Place stop 9 Cades Cove Loop

Nestled between the Old Cooper Road Trail and the Abrams Falls Hiking Trail on the Cades Cove Loop Road is the Elijah Oliver Place. It is at stop nine.

Bring your walking shoes and camera. People often think of pioneers living in single room cabins. Many families in Cades Cove lived in homes that had more than one room and several had more than one floor.

The Elijah Oliver Place is an example of a multi-room home. It sits about a half-mile off of the Cades Cove Loop Road.

Some of the buildings and their purposes at the Elijah Oliver Place include:

• The cabin was a home for the family.
• A spring house provided the only refrigeration existed in 1865.
• Smokehouse was the place where meats were preserved by smoking the meat.
• Chicken coop and barn were for the nurturing and sheltering of animals.
• The corn crib was for storing corn and other vegetables.

Elijah Oliver was born to parents John and Lucretia Oliver. Eiljah Oliver grew up in Cades Cove, left a few years before the Civil War and returned after the war to raise his family. The headstone of his parents is in the cemetery of the Cades Cove Primitive Baptist Church where Elijah Oliver served as a Deacon.

The Elijah Oliver Place is a historic example of a pioneer homestead. He had no way of knowing that the homestead he left behind would educate others for generations.