Yesterday my husband and I went to a local tourist spot, Cherokee, NC. I had some vintage photos I wanted to compare to the way the town looks today so we took the whole afternoon to just ramble around the town and to look for the Cherokee of our childhoods. The town has grown a lot, spread out, actually, due to a huge casino that was built outside of town about fifteen years ago. But the little downtown, shown above still has the mom and pop appearance that it sported in the late 1950s postcard at the top. Many of the buildings are still there, but the business have changed. The Sequoia Restaurant with its fantastic neon sign is long gone, and the building now houses a leather shop. And we could not tell if any of the buildings on the right were the same, as it looks like the widening of the road may have forced those to either be moved or rebuilt.
This one was a little harder to pinpoint. I thought I knew exactly where it was taken, but I was wrong. And the only way we finally spotted this was because of the stairs on the outside of the right side building in the vintage photo. Look carefully at the modern photo to see a diagonal structure behind the Black Bear sign. When we went over to look more closely, sure enough, there was an old outside staircase. This was the old building with a new facade!
The teepee building not in this area, but the Tomahawk is still there, though now it is Fort Tomahawk and is greatly remodeled, or perhap even a new building.
I also wanted to photograph all the vintage neon signs that are remaining. Several of the very best ones are gone, but we did locate some gems!
Love that by-line!
I can rembember the Pink Motel from my childhood. We were on our way to Gatlinburg, Tennessee when we passed by it, and my little sister, who was probably about 6 at the time, had a fit to stop there for the night! The motel is still open, still a mom and pop, and seems to be doing well. We went in (we spotted Pink Motel tees in the window) and the woman in charge told us all about the place. And she also said they are getting ready to repaint the sign. The sign is pretty spectacular at night – all pink except the wings and her swimsuit which are blue, and the star on the wand, which is yellow.
Yes, it really is pink, and pretty darn fantastic. The rooms open up onto the river which runs along the back of the motel.
We also went by Mac’s Indian Village Cabins. I would think that these date to the 1940s, but we could not find anyone who could tell us about them. There are about 20 cabins, but several of them have been enlarged and updated. The others, like the one I’m standing in front of, are tiny, with just enough room for a bed, a TV stand, and a sink. There is a tiny bath on the rear of each.
One of the things that has always made Cherokee so much fun is the mixture of kitsch, bad history and just pure tackiness! A group called Cherokee Travel and Tourism seems to be trying to battle this image with a series of slick ads stressing the culture of the Cherokee and the historical attractions. They have put together one of the best free travel guides I’ve seen lately, and their website is beautifully done. These are long on culture and history, short on tacky. They seem to sincerely want visitors to get an authentic view of the Cherokee.
So I’m wondering why the Eastern Band still allows the presence of bear zoos inside the Qualla Boundary. For a culture whose very survival depended upon respect for animals, why is this disrespect being allowed to continue? Roadside bears in cages and pits were a common sight in the 50s and 60s, but public outcry has eliminated this practice. But they are still allowed in several bear “zoos.” I love finding the few remaining vestages of the Cherokee I remember, but there are some practices better left to the past.
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Cherokee is my home town.
The Vintage Traveler 
beautiful pictures! I’m from Europe (Poland). I was in the Cherokee several times and I think that it is great place!
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Trying to locate a white horse monument from my first camping trip in 1984. Not having much luck.
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Hoping someone out there can help me date this piece of art which belonged to my grandmother, she was half Cherokee, it hung in her house for as long as I can remember. Well I don’t know how to add the photo. It’s a circle of wood,with a black bear at a roadside picture on it, old tag on back
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