 These huge boulders, called graybacks by the local people, have fallen from high mountain cliffs, and, over thousands of years, have migrated to the river valleys and streams in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This is the West Fork of the Little Pigeon River. In the early 1900's, flights of passenger pigeons were said to be so thick in the Smokies they darkened the sky. They were eventually hunted to extinction. The Pigeon River was named in their memory. 
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