This area along the Little River is beginning of The Sinks. Before the narrow gauge railroad was constructed in the early days of the 1900s, to move lumber to the mill downstream in Townsend, logs were dragged to the river, and placed in a head of water building up behind a wooden dam. When there was sufficient lumber and water behind the dam, the workmen blew it with dynamite and the rushing water carried the logs to the mill. At this turn the logs would often jam. To solve the problem the men dynamited the turn creating a very deep area which became one of the finest swimming holes in the park. The practice of moving the logs by water was abandoned with the arrival of the railroad in the heart of the mountains. The old railroad bed lies beneath today’s auto road from the Townsend “Y” to Elkmont.