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Cherokee, GSMNP to study land swap

By Rose Hooper
The Eastern Band of Cherokee and the National Park Service have signed an agreement to study the feasibility of exchanging properties.

Principal Chief Leon Jones said it was the Cherokee who initiated the deal "because we need the space for schools."

"We don't have any lower lands and we need room for three new schools on the reservation," Jones said.

The 168 acres the tribe would like to have is Park Service property known as Floyd Bottoms, located on the northwest side of the reservation near the Blue Ridge Parkway. "When you go up Big Cove you leave the reservation at this part - and then you come back and rejoin the reservation," Jones said of the property the tribe hopes to obtain.

"It would be ideal for us," Jones said, "because it would be flat land to build the schools and it would reconnect the reservation."

As for the land to swap, Jones said the tribe is considering "several tracts in North Carolina. It doesn't have to be adjacent to the tribe...it can even be in another part of the state. It just has to be next to a national park and it must be of equal value."

Jones said the tribe is not setting a precedent in proposing the land swap. "Other tribes have done it," he told the Herald.

The agreement to set up a joint study on the feasibility was just signed last month, he said. "So we are still in the early stages. The study could take a couple of years."

Back to Archive: 07/20/00.