Horseshoe Creek flows through Cataloochee Valley near Waynesville, North Carolina. Cataloochee is a Cherokee Indian name meaning waves of mountains. These local mountains are part of the Great Smoky Mountains, a Cherokee ancestral home.
The Cherokee tribe, descendants of the Northern Iroquois, lived in harmony in this area for over 500 years. Their way of life began to change when European settlers arrived. The settlers, mostly Scotch-Irish and English, brought guns, smallpox and a foreign idea of land ownership. The Cherokee soon learned to fear and despise the newcomers. Later in 1866, defying a United States federal order, Andrew Jackson forced the Cherokee from their homeland in one of the most shameful incidents in United States history, know as the Trail of Tears.