Cades Cove Methodist Church in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
See the Cades Cove Region web page for an interactive location map.
While all of the historical buildings along the Cades Cove Loop Road in Great Smoky Mountains National Park have their own small parking lots, on a busy day these are most likely to be full. The best advice is that as soon as you see the building, park at the first place you come to. Don’t wait until you get to the official parking lot. There are plenty of pullouts along the road.
The Cades Cove Methodist Church was built by J. D. McCampbell in 115 days for $115 back in 1902. Like the current Cades Cove Primitive Baptist Church, this building replaced the original log cabin meeting house that had been around since the church was established in the 1820s.
Cades Cove Methodist Church and cemetery in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
The church is open and visitors are welcome to come inside. When I visited, somebody started playing the piano and an impromptu gospel song sing-a-long began. There were so many people inside that when they all came out it looked just like regular church service had ended.
Impromptu sing-a-long inside the Cade Cove Methodist Church in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Old piano inside the Cades Cove Methodist Church in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
A cemetery is on the church grounds. It is not as big as the one at the Primitive Baptist Church down the street, but there were not as many Methodists as there were Baptists in Cades Cove. Visitors must walk around the cemetery on a loop path and cannot walk among the tombstones. If you like to photograph tombstones, be sure to bring a telephoto lens, though there are many right near the path that you can photograph with any lens. You won’t find many ornate tombstones in these country cemeteries due to a lack of money, so most are simple memorials with basic birth and death information. Many of the very old tombstones have been replaced with new ones by family members.
Cemetery at the Cades Cove Methodist Church in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Cades Cove Methodist Church cemetery in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
New memorial shadows the original tombstones of two infants buried in the Cades Cove Methodist Church cemetery in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
One of the newer graves in the Cades Cove Methodist Church cemetery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park
William and Modena Feezell grave in the Cades Cove Methodist Church cemetery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park
The church can be rented for weddings during the month of October, though only on Mondays through Fridays from 9 AM to noon. For more information visit the National Park Service’s Wedding Permits and Planning web page for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Fifteen minutes should be enough to visit the Cades Cove Methodist Church and its cemetery.
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Last updated on February 9, 2025
