Dan Lawson house in the Cades Cove region of Great Smoky Mountains National Park

See the Cades Cove Region web page for an interactive location map.

The Dan Lawson Place is located three-quarters of the way around the Cades Cove Loop Road in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. By this point on the drive, people have tired from seeing old cabins and churches, so getting a parking space near the Lawson homestead is much easier than it is at the attractions at the start of the loop. Here you will find a cabin, barn, smokehouse, and granary. All are open to visitors, though since there are no furnishings or other items inside, there’s not much to see—one of the reasons why interest in the buildings wanes by this point on the Cades Cove tour.

Dan Lawson built the house in 1856 after purchasing the land from his father-in-law, Peter Cable. The house you see today is not as it was originally, for over the years many additions were made. You can tell the original sections from the later additions by the way the logs were cut. The original house was built before powered sawmills came to Cades Cove, and the logs for this part of the house were hand cut. Later additions used machine-cut lumber, which provided a finer finished product than the rougher hand-cut logs.

Interior of the Dan Lawson house in the Cades Cove region of Great Smoky Mountains National Park