by Jim Matheny (Updated Nov. 4, 2025)
Just a few days after the federal government shutdown began Oct. 1, 2025, Friends of the Smokies joined a partnership of state and local entities to provide funding to fully reopen Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This initial agreement stretched from Oct. 4 through Nov. 2, allowing all park employees to return to work and receive pay as usual.
The partnership’s funding agreement has now been extended from Nov. 3, 2025, through Jan. 4, 2026, but with reduced staffing levels. Only employees directly related to visitor services are funded as the ongoing government shutdown approaches the longest in United States history.
We’ve received lots of questions about the specifics of the arrangement and how it is possible for state and local groups to foot the bill for the federal government. Below are further explanations, including some historical background for this type of agreement during a government shutdown.
First and foremost, why reopen the park during the government shutdown? To protect the park and help surrounding communities. We thank you for your generous donations and specialty license plates that put us in a position to help keep the most-visited national park open during a vital time for visitation.
Protecting the park
Why pay to provide more staffing beyond barebones essential personnel that would be on the job during a shutdown? Because the national park has experienced extensive damage during previous government shutdowns without adequate staffing to serve visitors and protect resources.
The 35-day shutdown from Dec. 2018 through most of Jan. 2019 provided a snapshot of what can happen when you leave the park accessible without maintaining full services and staff levels. Although the park was technically “shut down,” primary and secondary roads were left open while the doors were locked to the busiest visitor centers, restrooms, and museums in the park.
Despite generous efforts by volunteer groups to collect garbage, trash piled up in some places and attracted animals. Human waste was repeatedly found along trails, in parking lots, and outside locked restrooms. The shutdown created a public health problem as nearly half a million people accessed the park in January 2019.
This negative impact was felt even with January being one of the slowest months for visitation in the park. You could expect damage to be exponentially greater during a busy month such as October that draws an average of 1.6 million visitors to the park.
October would also be a much more challenging time than the 2018-19 shutdown was in terms of wildlife management. The 2018-19 shutdown occurred in winter when bears are not active and elk are not particularly aggressive. In October, bears are extremely active throughout the park as they try to fatten up on fall mast before winter. This is also a time biologists refer to as “the fall shuffle” when young male bears are on the move to establish their own territories.
For elk, the park’s largest animals, the mating season of September and October is winding down. However, the males are still bugling and have higher testosterone and aggression levels than normal. Volunteers coordinated by NPS staff are vital to direct traffic and prevent conflicts between wildlife and visitors.
As the park enters a relatively slower period than October, overall staffing levels have been reduced as of Nov. 3. However, funding provided by the partnership still allows a greater number of rangers and staff to be on hand to maintain facilities, serve visitors, and protect wildlife than would be the case if the park was shut down.
Keeping the park operational helps protect it along with its wildlife.
Community impact
The Smokies’ impact on the region is measured in millions of visitors and billions of dollars.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most-visited national park in the country, and it’s not even close. In 2024, the park attracted 12,191,834 recreation visits. The next most-visited parks were Zion (4.94 million), Grand Canyon (4.91 million), and Yellowstone (4.74 million).
Visitors to the Smokies spent more than $2 billion in communities near the national park in 2024, according to the NPS Visitor Spending Effects Report released in September 2025.
October is consistently one of the busiest times of year in the Smokies. From 2020 to 2024, the park averaged more than 1.64 million visitors in October. Visitation drops to an average of around 1 million visitors in November and roughly 760,000 in December.
There is arguably no worse time for a government shutdown than October for the park’s gateway communities that rely on tourism, which is why the partnership agreed to provide an unprecedented level of local funding from Oct. 4 through Nov. 2. While November and December may be slower, 1.7 million visitors over the two-month period still have a tremendous impact on the local economy.
2025 Shutdown begins: accessible with big exceptions
When the shutdown began Oct. 1, 2025, most of the national park remained accessible. Unlike previous shutdowns, the federal government continued to provide many services using funds generated through the fee program for parking and camping.
Restrooms were open and trash collection continued. Most trails, roads, and campgrounds were open, albeit with limited staffing for emergency response, law enforcement, water system management, and campground operations.
The visitor centers at Oconaluftee and Kuwohi inside the park, entirely staffed and funded by the nonprofit Smokies Life, remained open and operational. The visitor and welcome centers in Gatlinburg, Townsend, and Swain County also remained open, as they are not operated on federal lands and forced to close during shutdowns.
The notable closures in the park were Cades Cove Loop Road, the visitor centers at Cades Cove and Sugarlands, as well as the Chimneys and Cades Cove picnic areas.
Closing access to Cades Cove especially hurt.
Cades Cove’s 11-mile scenic loop is one of the most popular destinations in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It attracted nearly 2.3 million visitors in 2024. If Cades Cove were its own separate national park, it would be the 17th-most-visited national park in the United States. Its annual visitation ranks higher than New River Gorge (1.8 million), Shenandoah (1.7 million), Mount Rainier (1.6 million), and Arches (1.4 million) national parks.
Beyond closing access to these popular areas, most of the park’s employees were furloughed. This has a major impact on the experience of visitors. There’s a significant difference between merely having access to an area and having the park fully staffed.
Park reopens Oct. 4; Sevier County fronts money
The National Park Service and Department of Interior reached an agreement to allow outside funding to fully reopen and operate Great Smoky Mountains National Park beginning Oct. 4. These efforts were led by community leaders in Sevier County, Tenn. The federal government requires agreements to be with a single responsible entity, even if other partners contribute.
Sevier County Government signed the agreement and wired the money to reopen the national park. The other state and local partners will pay their share to Sevier County.
The agreement allows Sevier County to keep the park open from Oct. 4 through Nov. 2, 2025. Considering the shutdown could end quickly and without much notice, Sevier County is allowed to pay as it goes rather than pay for the entire month up front.
With pledges to assist with funding from its partners, Sevier County wired the first payment to reopen the park from Oct. 4 through Oct. 10. That week’s payment was comprised of $80,000 from the State of Tennessee and more than $45,500 each from Sevier County, Blount County, Cocke Country, the cities of Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Sevierville, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and Friends of the Smokies. We are not aware of any outreach to other counties or communities to participate in the funding.
All furloughed staff returned to work. All operations resumed. All the programs and projects normally taking place during this time of year are able to continue.
That includes the resumption of wildlife management to keep animals and people safe during a very active time for bears and elk. Our Trails Forever crew is able to continue working hard on the rehabilitation of Bullhead Trail, where they are trying to get as much done as possible before winter forces them to postpone many tasks until spring. The Forever Places crew funded by Friends is also continuing its long list of work to preserve historic structures in the Smokies.
The partners agreed on Oct. 8 to support a second payment to keep the park open through Oct. 19, 2025. With still no end to the shutdown in sight on Oct. 17, the partnership agreed to commit to funding for the remainder of the agreement through Nov. 2, 2025.
As the shutdown stretched into the last week of October, the partners met and determined they were capable of providing funding at a reduced level to ensure the park remained open with additional staffing through the holidays and New Year.
Reimbursements not guaranteed
When the shutdown ends, there is no guarantee that the money provided to the federal government will be repaid. Any reimbursement will have to be approved by Congress. It is certainly the hope of the partnership that Congress will pass legislation as soon as possible to reimburse Tennesseans, the EBCI, and Friends of the Smokies for keeping the most-visited national park open at a critical time for our communities.
This hope is based on Congress reimbursing Tennessee and other states following the shutdown in 2013. See more details in the section below about the historical precedent for this process.
Cades Cove Loop Lope continues as planned
At Friends of the Smokies, we are especially relieved the Cades Cove Loop Lope is continuing as scheduled Nov. 9, 2025. It is one of our major fundraisers and the only official footrace held inside the national park. It’s a wonderful event in a beautiful location. It sold out within 24 hours when registration opened in June.
We have participants registered from 28 different states. We know there are hundreds of people who made travel arrangements to attend the Loop Lope. We are glad they will be able to continue their travel plans and join us for a wonderful time in Cades Cove while helping support our mission.
Shutdown history: Precedent set by October 2013 shutdown
Previous shutdowns set an example for what is possible in terms of reopening the national park, along with a template for when it would happen and which groups would provide funding.
During two federal government shutdowns in the 1990s, the Smokies locked its gates to roads that were not major highways, closed its facilities, and ceased all staffing other than law enforcement and other essential personnel.
The shutdowns in 1995 and 1996 occurred in mid-November, late-December, and January. These are months when tourism naturally dips in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Unlike the 1990s shutdowns, the 2013 shutdown hit at a vital time for tourism. It began Oct. 1, 2013, during a banner year for fall foliage and inflicted serious damage on local businesses.
As the shutdown dragged on, Utah reached a deal to reopen its national parks on October 11, 2013, by using state funds to pay its parks’ usual NPS staff. Tennessee and other states soon followed Utah’s template.
A partnership between Sevier County, Blount County, and the State of Tennessee provided funds to reopen the Smokies from Oct. 16 through Oct. 20. The gates reopened and all staff returned to work on Oct. 16. The shutdown ended after one day and federal funding resumed Oct. 17.
In April 2016, Congress approved a bill that included more than $60,000 to reimburse Tennesseans for funding the operation of the Smokies on Oct. 16, 2013.
Friends of the Smokies assistance during 2018-19 shutdown
During the federal government shutdown that extended 35 days from Dec. 2018 through most of Jan. 2019, state and local governments did not feel compelled to fully fund and staff the national park as it did in October 2013. As previously mentioned, access to the park was allowed but facilities were closed.
Public health problems arose as half a million visitors accessed the park during the shutdown. Human waste was found on trails, in parking lots, and outside locked restrooms. The park superintendent requested and received funding from Friends of the Smokies to reopen restrooms at Newfound Gap and Cades Cove on Jan. 5, 2019.
As Martin Luther King, Jr. Day approached, Friends of the Smokies and GSMA (now Smokies Life) agreed to provide funding to reopen the largest visitor centers at Sugarlands and Oconaluftee for the busy holiday weekend. The agreement would have kept visitor centers open each weekend through President’s Day. Thankfully, the shutdown ended Jan. 25, 2019, and additional weekend funding was not needed.
Friends of the Smokies was later reimbursed for funding restrooms and visitor centers.
Your support matters!
Again, there is no guarantee Friends of the Smokies or any of the agencies funding the park during the 2025 shutdown will be reimbursed. If it happens, it could take years for it to be approved and repaid.
We are so thankful for your support through generous donations and specialty license plates. We could not do it without your help! Thank you, Friends!
About Friends of the Smokies
Friends of the Smokies is the official nonprofit partner of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Through private donations, fundraising events, and specialty license plates in North Carolina and Tennessee, Friends of the Smokies raises money to fund needed projects and programs in the national park that would otherwise go unfunded.
Learn more about how to get a Friends of the Smokies license plate at BearPlate.org. You can make a direct tax-deductible donation at our website. We are also grateful for those who pitch in at our donation boxes throughout the park. Every gift makes a significant difference for our beloved Smokies. Thank you, Friends!
Sign up to receive our monthly e-newsletter and email updates at friendsofthesmokies.org/stay-in-touch/