Conversations

 Could you start by introducing yourself?

My name is Charlie Rhodarmer, I'm from Canton, North Carolina, and I'm the manager director here at the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum.​​

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Can you tell me about the museum?

The museum opened in June 1986. It was a result of the fact that when it became public that [the TVA] were going to build the Tellico Dam and create the Tellico Lake, the Cherokee as well as local citizens were protesting, trying to stop the dam. At one point they thought they actually got it stopped but President Jimmy Carter signed a bill into law that said to ignore all federal laws, finish the dam, close the floodgates, be done with this project. And when that happened, the Cherokee went to the Tennessee Valley Authority and asked "how are you going to help us commemorate and remember the Cherokee people that lived here?" They hired an outside company that came up with 38 different concepts. The very first two were to return the remains of the Cherokee that can be identified as 18th century Cherokee. That had never happened before. And that's the result of the memorial mound that's down in our field. And one of the other suggestions was to build a museum and tell Sequoyah's story who, in 5000 years of human civilization and all those records, no one person has ever created a writing system by himself, who was illiterate. He never went to school. Never learned Latin, German, Spanish, English, and by himself over a 12 year period, he developed the Sequoyah syllabary.

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What is your daily work like?

It varies from time to time. I do administrative kind of things, paperwork, sometimes grants. Clean bathrooms. Sometimes I'm running chainsaws to clear the path. We got rid of our tractor but we would do stuff with the tractor to bush hog or mow. I guess that's one of the reasons I've been here for so long, is because each day is kind of a little different variety.

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How did you get to where you are?​

I've always loved history. My parents were not really big history people but when we went on vacation, we would go to battlefields and historic sites and, as I got older, an aunt gave me my uncle's WWI uniform. And so from there I started collecting military stuff. I got involved in living history, reenacting the Civil War, the American Revolution. I went to Western Carolina University and ended up meeting a blacksmith named David Brewin and I started apprenticing with him. He was the exhibit specialist at the Mountain Heritage Centre. I started helping him at the museum, doing contract work for the museum to earn extra money. And so, since 1989, I've been working in museums. I was working at the Boy Scouts National Scouting Museum in Murray, Kentucky. That was back when the Governor of Tennessee wanted to close a bunch of state parks that didn't really generate money and Fort Loudoun was one of them. And so they were going to shut it down so they held a Save The Fort weekend. I came down with another friend of mine, Jeff Wells, who became the park manager at Fort Loudoun and that's when I found out there was an opening here at Sequoyah Birthplace Museum. I contacted the chairman Max Ramsey and sent him my resume, and that was when I started here. July 10, 2000.

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What do you think of your business being a tourist attraction?​

When the museum opened in 1986, it was a state of the art museum for the time. They had actually bought the display from the McClung Museum which had been built in the 70s. When I got here, I looked at it as not just the museum but the grounds, the site itself. The board identified long before I ever got here that they needed to upgrade the exhibit. Seven years ago, we shut the museum down. We gutted it, redid the building. This was a bunch of offices and so we tore all that out to make a multipurpose room so organizations could come and have their meetings here. We started upgrading as best we could and doing what we could do in there and that's what my background is as exhibit building. Since we started the renovations and we made the new theatre, I've not heard a bad word from any visitor once they've gone through the exhibit. They're usually fascinated and it catches their attention.

 

Why do you think visitors should come to your business?

To learn about Sequoyah and his incredible story. In 5000 years of human civilization and all those records, no one person has ever created a writing system by himself. He was at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. He goes to Washington as part of a treaty group. There's so many fascinating things about him and the Cherokee during his lifetime. It isn't just the museum people come for, it is the grounds. Some people will say "I don't want to go learn about some guy that created a writing system. Oh, they have a hiking trail. Let's go hike." We get the people to come here because we have a mile and a half shoreline trail, people coming here to walk their dogs. And then one day they come into use bathrooms, they come in and then they go through the exhibit. Their family and friends from out of state come in, they bring them here.

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How do you see this business within the culture of the county?

It is part of all the things that make up Monroe County. You wouldn't have the history of Monroe County if the Cherokee hadn't been here. You wouldn't have the history of the county because of the Cherokee, which led to Fort Loudoun, the siege of Fort Loudoun, which then led to Henry Timberlake coming here writing his memoirs. And then you have Sequoyah who is born near or in the village of Tuskegee, around 1776.

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Where do you see your business in the next few years?

I see the museum growing by doing more events, having outside venues coming in to use our facilities which will in turn help us to raise revenue. Highway 411 used to be a two lane road from Maryville to Madisonville, and you had to want to come to Vonore. It was a nightmare getting here. Between the fort, the blockhouse, and the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum, it was a destination, but there was very rundown hotel that was here in Vonore, which been torn down years ago. In all the years that the museum had been struggling to get to the next level, they were talking about shutting the building down, but the board continued to work to keep the doors open. Dr. Duane King said "Why don't we ask TVA to give us land like the museum, and then we find a developer that can build hotels, motels, campgrounds, cabins, retail, and then they would pay rent profit share to the museum to help run it?" And so that actually has developed with what now is the Cherokee Marina, used to be Sequoyah Landing. The only thing that shut our doors was the pandemic. We had to shut down like everybody else. And because of the rent profit share that we've been getting from the Marina, that's what kept our doors open. And we were actually able to continue to pay our part time staff during the shutdown, even though they couldn't work.