The Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center in Townsend, Tennessee, near the entrance to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, preserves the human history of the Smokies from Native American communities through pioneer and later Appalachian life. Conceived in the early 2000s by Richard Way with support from Bob Patterson and local civic groups, it opened on February 12, 2006. Its exhibits include Native American artifacts, transportation history, and objects of everyday mountain life, along with historic regional structures such as cabins, barns, a church, a sawmill, and a moonshine still. Together these collections show how people lived, worked, traveled, and worshipped in the mountain region across thousands of years.