About Cades Cove Primitive Baptist Church Pullout
The Primitive Baptist Church is the oldest congregation in Cades Cove, and the first church you reach on the loop. It stands in a clearing beside the road, with a cemetery of weathered stones around it.
The congregation
The Cades Cove Primitive Baptists organized in 1827, which makes this one of the earliest churches in the Smokies. The building you see dates to 1887 and is a simple frame church with a gable roof and a front door. Services continued here into the twentieth century, and the churchyard is still tended.
The graveyard
The cemetery is the main reason to get out of the car. Headstones carry the names of the cove's early settler families. Some are hand-lettered and a few are fieldstones with no inscription at all. Please walk gently and don't lean on or rub the stones.
Visiting
- Where: early on the loop, a couple of miles in from the entrance, past the John Oliver Place.
- Parking: a small lot; it fills on busy days.
- Time to allow: 15 to 20 minutes.
- Facilities: none. Restrooms are at Cable Mill.
- Hours and rules: the loop is open sunrise to sunset, and a parking tag is required for stops over 15 minutes.
Photography and light
Mid-morning light works well. Before sunrise, fog sometimes lies over the meadow behind the church, and a photograph taken from the road then has a quiet, moody look. Deer often graze in the field across the road.
The next church on the loop, the Methodist church, is a few minutes along, and the third, the Missionary Baptist, follows after that. The loop is closed to cars on Wednesdays from May 6 to September 30, 2026, so choose another day if you want to drive.
Good to know
- Do I need a parking tag?
- A Park It Forward parking tag ($5 a day, $15 a week or $40 a year) is required for any vehicle parked more than 15 minutes inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Entry is free, and federal passes such as America the Beautiful do not replace the tag.