Rockefeller fund matched $5m, helping create Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Great Smoky Mountains National Park stretches across more than 522,000 acres along the Tennessee-North Carolina border. But its creation faced a major hurdle when rising land prices pushed the cost of acquiring the forest beyond what supporters had raised.By 1928, supporters had raised $5 million to purchase land for the proposed park. But land prices had risen sharply, doubling the cost of the property and bringing the campaign to a standstill.The breakthrough came when the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund donated another $5 million. The gift matched the money already raised and helped supporters buy the remaining land needed to establish the park.A park that had to be boughtThe idea of creating a national park in the Great Smoky Mountains had been around since the late 1890s.