Gatlinburg SkyPark History
Gatlinburg SkyPark History
A Gatlinburg Icon
In the winter of 1953, local innkeeper Rel Maples contacted Everett Kircher and asked him to build a chairlift on a mountain behind his property in Gatlinburg, Tennessee after reading an article in AAA magazine about Kircher's chairlift expertise gained from operating a ski area in Michigan. After meeting at the proposed site, Mr. Maples agreed to lease the land to Kircher to construct and operate a chairlift himself, and Gatlinburg sightseeing history was made.
Kircher purchased a ski lift from Sugar Bowl Ski Area in California, dismantled it, and transported it to his father's Studebaker dealership in Rochester, Michigan where the work of engineering and rebuilding the lift began.
Kircher's father made the trip to Gatlinburg to scout the area and coordinate labor, and Kircher soon followed after closing Boyne Mountain Ski Area in Michigan in the spring. A survey of the site lead to the construction of a road to the top, and the difficult process of pouring footings for the lift towers before the team was finally able to erect the lift structure and hang the chairs. It was the first chairlift ever built in the South, and opened to the public in 1954.
Tradition
Building on the Mountain
The years after the 2016 wildfires became one of the most ambitious stretches in SkyPark's history. What began as a single chairlift grew into a full mountaintop experience: one new landmark at a time.
SkyBridge, first envisioned back in 2016, opened in May 2019 after seven months of construction. At nearly 700 feet in a single span, it's North America's longest pedestrian cable bridge, longer than two football fields, standing 500 feet above downtown Gatlinburg and 1,800 feet above sea level. Four miles of cable and half a million pounds of concrete anchor each side, and thirty feet of glass panels at the midpoint give guests a straight-down view to the valley floor. In 2025, SkyPark added see-through steel grating to the bridge deck, opening up 60 feet of additional see-through space for guests chasing that stomach-drop moment.
SkyTrail and Tulip Tower followed soon after, with the boardwalk and tower breaking ground in 2020 and welcoming guests in November 2021. Interpretive signage along the way tells the story of SkyBridge's engineering, the SkyLift's history, and the 2016 wildfires, turning a walk across the mountain into a walk through SkyPark's own past. Tulip Tower received a new roof in February 2026.
Clayton's Landing opened in December 2024 after construction that began in January 2023. The 10,000-square-foot gathering space, which holds up to 235 guests, is named in honor of Clayton Watson, former general manager and father of current general manager Randy Watson, a tribute that ties SkyPark's newest addition back to its family roots. It's home to Smoky Mountain Smash, serving up smash burgers, and Smoky Mountain SIPS, and it also serves as the trailhead for the SkyTrail nature trail system.
The Nature Trails, built by the Highland Bike Park team, opened in September 2024 as the only nature trails in downtown Gatlinburg. The 1.5-mile trail system began construction in the winter of 2023–24 and gives guests a taste of the Smokies without leaving the park. Every trail is dog-friendly and because guests are sharing the mountain with local wildlife, SkyPark encourages walkers to make noise and follow good trail etiquette in bear country.
Together, these additions carried SkyPark from a single 1954 chairlift into the multi-attraction mountaintop experience guests know today, one still built, at its core, on the same spirit that brought Rel Maples and Everett Kircher together over seventy years ago.
In 2024, SkyPark celebrated its 70th Anniversary.