Cosby is an unincorporated improve in Cocke and Sevier counties in the U.S.

The Cosby Creek Valley, looking southwest from Foothills Parkway (Green Mountain) Cosby is positioned at 35 49 02 N 83 14 49 W (35.8172, -83.2469). The improve is spread out over a narrow valley that runs from Allen Grove near Newport in the north to the border of the nationwide park to the south.

English Mountain rises over 2,000 feet above Cosby to the northwest and Green Mountain rises just over 1,500 feet to the east.

Cosby Creek, its origin on the crest of the Smokies near Cammerer Ridge, is the valley's chief watershed.

Lower Cosby is the northernmost section, roughly consisting of the region between the mouth of Cosby Creek along the Pigeon River and Jones Cove Road.

Upper Cosby, most of which is now part of the nationwide park, consists mainly of the region in the vicinity of the Cosby Campground. TN-32 alongsides US-321 through most of Cosby before splitting off and heading east to the Cosby section of the nationwide park and forward to the Tennessee-North Carolina border.

For centuries, lands along the northern rim of the Great Smokies, including Cosby, were used primarily as hunting grounds by the Cherokee. The first European pioneer appeared in what is now Cocke County in the early 1780s.

While Cherokee raids continued, the Cosby region was largely peaceful by the early 19th century.

The first centers around an early trapper and distiller in the region named Jonathan Cosby (sometimes spelled "Cozby"). The second suggests that the creek and valley were titled after Dr.

1752-1831), a Revolutionary War veteran and friend of John Sevier, who may have made early claims to territory along the creek. In any case, the name appears as early as 1838 in the minutes of the Big Pigeon Church in reference to the Bethany Church that had recently been established along "Cosby Creek." Like most mountain communities, Cosby was subject to raids throughout the war, especially from Confederate marauders crossing the mountain peaks from North Carolina. A "home guard" camp was eventually established at the mouth of Indian Camp creek. The improve benefited to some extent from the barns stations established at Newport and Big Creek (between Cosby and Newport) in 1867 and the 1870s, in the order given.

The grave of Ella Costner, former Cosby resident and Poet Laureate of the Smokies, near Cosby Campground Mary Bell Smith, who interval up in Cosby in the 1920s, remembered: Although the Baptist Church Organization established Cosby Academy in 1913, most of Cosby's kids received brief instruction in rudimentary schoolhouses.

Smith remembered her father waking up before sunrise and "returning with a several squirrels" for the family breakfast. The pains of the Depression were eased when the Civilian Conservation Corps established a camp at what is now Cosby Creek Campground to construct trails for the newly created Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the TVA began work on Douglas Dam on the other side of English Mountain.

Unlike many other Smoky Mountain communities, such as Cades Cove and the Sugarlands, only part of Cosby was incorporated into the nationwide park.

For much of the first half of the 20th century, Cosby was known to East Tennesseans as "The Moonshine Capital of the World." Of Cosby's moonshiners, Smith recalled: While many mountain communities were difficult to access, Cosby was connected by road to Newport and Knoxville, giving it an early advantage.

The explosion of moonshining in the Cosby region would lead to a cat-and-mouse game between law enforcement and moonshiners.

Cosby's economy is fueled by the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Foothills Parkway.

Known for its regarded small town, mountain town like culture and surrounding, Cosby has multiple motels, cabins, and country-style restaurants to give a kind of Appalachian feel to the area.

The Cosby improve is served by the Cocke County Schools System and the Sevier County Schools System.

Cosby Elementary School Grades K-8, the elementary school is connected to the high school and has the same address, and share some of the same buildings and cafeteria.

Cosby has made the 1 - A state tournament in both girls' and boys' basketball multiple times and is considered to be one of the top 1 - A basketball programs in all of Eastern Tennessee.

Rolfe Godshalk (editor), Newport (Newport, Tennessee: Clifton Club, 1970), 35.

Willard Yarbrough, "Ramp Festival, Seven Peaks, Among Cosby Area Highlights," Knoxville News-Sentinel, 21 April 1978.

Ruth Webb O'Dell, Over the Misty Blue Hills: The Story of Cocke County, Tennessee (Newport, Tenn.: 1951).

Rolfe Godshalk (editor), Newport (Newport, Tennessee: Clifton Club, 1970), 119.

Mary Bell Smith, In the Shadow of the White Rock (Boone, N.C.: Minor's Publishing Company, 1979), 2.

Mary Bell Smith, In the Shadow of the White Rock (Boone, N.C.: Minor's Publishing Company, 1979), 9.

Mary Bell Smith, In the Shadow of the White Rock (Boone, N.C.: Minor's Publishing Company, 1979), 10.

Mary Bell Smith, In the Shadow of the White Rock (Boone, N.C.: Minor's Publishing Company, 1979), 25.

Mary Bell Smith, In the Shadow of the White Rock (Boone, N.C.: Minor's Publishing Company, 1979), 57.

Mary Bell Smith, In the Shadow of the White Rock (Boone, N.C.: Minor's Publishing Company, 1979), 40.

Mary Bell Smith, In the Shadow of the White Rock (Boone, N.C.: Minor's Publishing Company, 1979), 54.

Mary Bell Smith, In the Shadow of the White Rock (Boone, N.C.: Minor's Publishing Company, 1979), 53.

Categories:
Unincorporated communities in Cocke County, Tennessee - Unincorporated communities in Sevier County, Tennessee - Unincorporated communities in Tennessee - Communities of the Great Smoky Mountains