Word from the Smokies: Ranger-made goods add personal touch to park stores
Retired park ranger Mike Meldrum works in his garage shop to create an old-fashioned wooden toy, which he will then donate for sale in the Cades Cove Visitor Center.
Photo by Valerie Polk, courtesy of Smokies Life.
Mike Meldrum could claim his current occupation as a third career — if he weren’t so careful to avoid calling it a job.
“I want to have fun and feel like I’m doing something worthwhile with my time,” said Meldrum, a former park ranger whose handiwork has raised $37,000 in support of Great Smoky Mountains National Park during the last two years alone.
The coasters, arrowhead keepsakes and heritage toys Meldrum makes in his garage are just some of the objects found in visitor centers around the park that were crafted by current or former park rangers. Meldrum, who retired from the National Park Service in 2016, donates his wares for sale at the Cades Cove Visitor Center and the Great Smokies Welcome Center in Townsend, both in Tennessee. More recently, visitors to the Oconaluftee Visitor Center in North Carolina have been able to purchase brooms and blacksmithed goods current rangers and volunteers make during cultural demonstrations.
“Visitors really like the fact that these rangers are giving back to the park, and it’s just well made, so the quality’s there, and they like that too,” said Smokies Life Retail Director Dawn Roark.
Meldrum spent his first career working in robotics for the automaker Chrysler, but he “fell in love” with the Smokies following a 1973 trip to Cades Cove with his wife. A post-retirement move to the Smokies was an easy decision, and they relocated to Wears Valley, Tennessee, in 1998.
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His second career launched just a couple years later. Smokies Life hired Meldrum to run the Cable Mill in Cades Cove, and that led to a “dream job” as a Cades Cove ranger for the National Park Service. He held that position for 16 years until his second retirement in 2016, and his collaboration with the stores began during that time.
Back then, Meldrum and his colleagues would sometimes reach out to visitors by setting up tables filled with sensory items like animal furs and wooden toys that children would have played with in the early 1900s. They’d stand behind the tables, answering visitors’ questions and explaining the significance the displayed items held for the Smokies’ past and present. The toys proved especially popular.
“The kids would want to buy them, but there was no place to buy,” he said. “I thought, ‘I can make some. They’re not hard.’”
Meldrum had long enjoyed woodworking, and when he moved to Tennessee he’d made sure to buy a house with a garage large enough to hold a little shop. He began looking for scrap lumber that he could use to make toys and then started donating his handiwork for sale in the Cades Cove Visitor Center.
The pieces sold well, and after retiring he expanded his repertoire, purchasing a laser engraver that allows him to marry his love of woodworking with his background in robotics. Meldrum currently works part-time as a tour guide at the Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center in Townsend, and he uses his earnings to buy materials for laser-engraved coasters and arrowheads, all made with bamboo. Each product bears intricate designs depicting park places and wildlife.
To create these designs, he often works with a photographer whose work he will use as the basis for the design. He uses software to clean up the background and convert the photo to a format that the laser can understand. Then, it’s time to start engraving. Once he’s done, Meldrum donates his creations to the stores in Cades Cove and Townsend, both operated by Smokies Life, so that every cent earned from the sale can go toward supporting the park.
“National parks are pretty special places, and I feel that the work I do and the money that I spend is well worth it because it helps to educate people,” he said. “I’m leaving a legacy behind.”
Meldrum isn’t the only ranger whose handiwork is helping park shoppers understand the Smokies’ cultural heritage. In November 2024, Oconaluftee Visitor Center began selling the brooms, dinner bells and hooks made by rangers and volunteers who give cultural demonstrations in the park.
“The rangers noticed that when they were demonstrating these things, that people were asking if they could purchase them,” said Roark. “They were going with that idea and saying, ‘Maybe there is a way we can make these demonstrations pay for themselves.’”
The park asked Smokies Life if it would be willing to partner toward that effort, and now the organization purchases these crafts and offers them for sale in the Oconaluftee store. The park service puts its earnings toward covering the cost of future demonstrations, and any further profit made when the items sell supports the mission of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
“It’s a good way for those programs to pay for themselves without having to use other funds, so that frees the money up for something else that would really benefit from it,” Roark said. “Plus, it's good to have some homemade items to sell in the store that are indicative of times past.”
Though cultural demonstrations have mostly been on hiatus for the winter, shoppers are already showing interest. Since the items first appeared in the Oconaluftee store around Thanksgiving, brooms and blacksmithed items have yielded a profit of about $1,300.
Smokies Life uses this money to support educational, historical, and scientific programs throughout the park. From producing publications such as the popular "Field Guides of the Smokies" series and the "Smokies Guide" newspaper to funding a variety of NPS positions in the Smokies, the organization is involved with a diversity of Smokies-centric projects.
“When visitors buy my things, the cashier tells them a retired ranger makes them,” Meldrum said. “They tell me people will go get a second one because they know all the money goes straight to a good purpose.”
Holly Kays is the lead writer for the 29,000-member Smokies Life, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the scientific, historical, and interpretive activities of Great Smoky Mountains National Park by providing educational products and services such as this column. Learn more at SmokiesLife.org or reach the author at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
