A. Chase Ambler book collection

Chase P. Ambler (1865-1932) was instrumental in the first movement in establishing the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the early Twentieth Century. He was born to Peter and Delilah Yengling Ambler in Salem Oregon. In 1889, he graduated from Western Reserve University. As a medical doctor, he did post-graduate work at New York Polyclinic. He was extremely interested in the promotion of health and founded a tuberculosis hospital and as president of the Buncombe County Medical Society, worked for meat and milk inspection. In the early Twentieth Century, he convinced the Sisters of Mercy to open a sanatorium named St. Joseph's in Asheville. He later worked at Meriwether Sanitarium until he founded Ambler Heights Sanitarium, which he owned and directed. He also served as Asheville School’s physician from 1913 to 1924 and directed the Asheville Board of Trade for twelve years.

Ambler married Harriet Vernon and they raised five children. After Harriet's death in 1918, he married Daisy D. Chalmers.

Early 1880s

Rev. Drayton Canario Smith, of Franklin, North Caroilna, advocated establishing a national park in the southern Appalachian Mountains

29 October 1885

Dr. Henry O. Marcy, of Boston, Massachusetts, read a paper to the American Academy of Medicine stating the government should secure land in Western North Carolina

19 December 1899

"Memorial to the Congress of the United States from the Appalachian National Park Association adopted December 19, 1899" submitted to the U.S. Congress

6 March 1899

Good Roads Association of Asheville and Buncombe County organized

7 October 1899

Asheville Board of Trade adopted a petition calling for the establishment of a Southern National Park

23 November 1899

Appalachian National Park Association was officially organized

2 January 1900

"Memorial of the Appalachian National Park Association" was referred to the Committee of Agriculture

21 April 1900

Senator Jeter Pritchard of Madison County, North Carolina introduced a bill to fund a preliminary investigation. It became law on 26 April 1900

1901

Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia passed bills to give the federal government the right to acquire lands for a forest reserve and exempt it from taxation

1903

House Speaker David Henson obstructed any measures for a national park or reserve

1 March 1911

The National Forest Reserve Commission was established and the Weeks Law, which permitted the government to purchase forest lands from individuals, passed

1912

First tract of land purchased in Curtis Creek, near Old Fort, North Carolina

1916

The National Park Service and the National Parks Association were established

1923

The second movement to establish a national park begins

1924

The National Park Service appointed the Southern Appalachian National Park Committee to investigate potential sites

22 May 1926

Congress passed a bill to establish national parks in the Great Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia (Shenandoah National Park)

2 September 1940

President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the Great Smoky Mountains National Park