Silers Bald - History

History

While Silers Bald is hardly mentioned in Cherokee lore, a petroglyph was discovered near the summit in 1917. The mountain's elevation is probably recorded by Arnold Guyot during his 1859 survey of the Smokies crest, but under a different name (possibly Guyot's "Big Stone Mountain," which Guyot listed with an elevation of 5,614 feet (1,711 m) and lying somewhere between Mt. Buckley and Thunderhead).

Silers Bald is named after Jesse Siler, a prominent North Carolinian who grazed sheep and cattle atop the mountain in the 19th century. Likewise, Siler Bald, in the Nantahala Mountains to the south, was named after Jesse's brother, William. Albert Mountain, also to the south, was named after Jesse's nephew, Albert Siler.

By the late 19th century, Silers Bald was the far eastern end of a giant grassy pasture that stretched several miles across the Smokies' western ridge all the way to Russell Field, which overlooks Cades Cove. The mountain is mentioned several times in Horace Kephart's Our Southern Highlanders as the last stop before one enters a heavily-wooded wilderness. According to Kephart, beyond "Hall cabin" (a herder's shack near modern Big Chestnut Bald, six miles (10 km) east of Thunderhead):

...there is just one shack, at Siler's Meadow. It is down below the summit, hidden in timber, and you would never have seen it. Even if you had, you would have found it as bare as a last year's mouse nest, for nobody ever goes there except for a few bear-hunters. From there onward for forty miles is an uninhabited wilderness so rough that you could not make seven miles a day in it to save your life..."

Laura Thornborough, a writer who visited Silers Bald in the 1930s, recalls it as a giant meadow:

Silers is one of the mysterious grassy balds, or mountain-top meadows, and an outstanding vantage point commanding spectacular views.