Family Fun Hikes in the Smokies: Little Greenbrier Schoolhouse and Walker Sisters Cabin

The Smokies offers more than 800 miles of hiking trails ranging from easy to arduous. Many of these trails are particularly good choices for families because they include historic sites and other interesting opportunities for exploration. This post describes a hike to the Little Greenbrier Schoolhouse and on to the Walker Sisters Cabin, the first of a three-part series that shares some of the best kid-friendly hiking options in the park. Check the Smokies LIVE blog for additional installments.

This is a fun history hike that takes you to the Little Greenbrier Schoolhouse and continues on to the historic Walker Sisters Cabin (one of the longest-occupied cabins after the park’s creation). If your family is looking for a shorter hike, other options are to just hike to the schoolhouse and back or to drive to the schoolhouse and then hike to the cabin. Choose whichever option works best for you—they are all described here.

Start at Metcalf Bottoms Picnic Area, right off Little River Road near Wears Valley. Look for the wide wooden bridge that crosses the river in the middle of the picnic area. Walk over the bridge and look for the trailhead immediately to the right. The wide, flat gravel trail winds through the woods and past a water tower, taking you over a few small footbridges before it leaves the woods at a spot behind the one-room, split-log schoolhouse.

Built from four-foot-wide poplar logs in 1882 (by the parents of the schoolchildren themselves), the building doubled as a Primitive Baptist church on Sundays—which explains the presence of the adjacent cemetery, surrounded by a picket fence. The schoolhouse was in use for more than 50 years before the park was established. The students walked up to nine miles to get to school each day. You can still go inside and sit at one of the many well-worn wooden desks that face the large painted-wood blackboard. If you return to the picnic area from here, the hike is just 1.2 miles roundtrip.

If you take the option to continue to the Walker Sisters Cabin, the hike is a total of 3.4 miles roundtrip. To do that, walk up the hill behind the parking area and cemetery to a gated road that leads further uphill. You’ll see a sign there indicating that the cabin is 1.1 miles away. This gravel road is labeled as Little Brier Trail on trail maps, although there’s no sign that identifies it.

If you want an easier option for seeing both the schoolhouse and the cabin, drive over the one-lane bridge at Metcalf Bottoms and follow the signs to the schoolhouse, taking Wear Cove Gap Road for about a quarter of a mile until turning right onto a narrow gravel road (closed in winter) that takes you an additional half a mile to the schoolhouse. From there, you can park your car and hike the 2.2-mile roundtrip segment to the cabin.

When you get to the two-room cabin, you can walk inside and explore. The house was originally two separate cabins, constructed at different times and later moved together. That’s why each room has its own stone fireplace. Be sure to note the remnants of the newspaper that once lined all the walls and check out the rusted implements sitting on a shelf that once belonged to the sisters.

The unmarried sisters who lived here included Margaret, Polly, Martha, Louisa, Nancy, and Hettie. (One additional sister named Sarah Caroline and four brothers also grew up here, but they all married and moved away.) Nancy died before the national park was established, but the other five sisters were among the area residents who chose to stay as lifetime lessees. The Walker sisters sold homemade jams and pickles to tourists and were profiled in the April 27, 1946, edition of The Saturday Evening Post. The last of the six unmarried sisters, Louisa, died in 1964 at age 81.

The surviving outbuildings include a springhouse and a corncrib with tools still hanging on the side. At one time, this was a 122.8-acre farm that also featured a barn, pigpen, smokehouse, apple house, blacksmith shop, and gristmill, although no signs of those buildings remain.

The cabin was recently renovated to address safety concerns and prevent degradation thanks to the park’s Forever Places crew, which is funded by park partner Friends of the Smokies. The cabin closed in late 2021 and reopened in June 2023 after the crew replaced the roof and portions of the wall timbers, stabilized the foundation, added new floorboards, and restored the fireplace.