Southern Railroad terminal at nearby Walland, and with able engineers managed to lay railroad tracts all the way to the upper reaches of Little River and Jakes Creek. In 1918, Walker suffered a stroke that left him largely incapacitated. On December 26 of that year, he finally agreed to sell Middle Prong to Little River Lumber after Townsend gave him his word that he wouldn't harvest trees along Thunderhead Prong. Six months later, Walker died after suffering a second stroke. On Townsend's orders, a small train carried Walker's coffin ceremoniously to the Bethel Baptist Cemetery in Tuckaleechee, where it rests today. Tremont Although Townsend sold his Little River tract to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Commission in 1926, he did so with the agreement that he could continue logging in the area for 15 years. After logging operations had commenced at Elkmont in 1925, Townsend ordered the tracks to be pulled up and moved to Middle Prong. A base for the Middle Prong operation was set up at the junction of Lynn Camp Prong and Thunderhead Prong. This base quickly grew into a small town, which was given the name Tremont, a combination of "tree" and "mountain." While Tremont remained a base of operations, the logging camps moved further and further up Lynn Camp Prong as the operation progressed. These camps consisted of small shanty houses that could be loaded onto flatcars and moved from camp to camp. The base camp at Tremont consisted of a post office, hotel, maintenance sheds, a general store, and a community center that served as a church, school, and movie theater. Dora Cope, who lived at Tremont in the late 1920s and 1930s, later recalled various aspects of life in the logging camps. Cope remembered the camps being infested with rats and vulnerable to fires and the unpredictable weather of the Smokies. Cope spoke of Middle Prong as a "crystal playground" that was serene and calm on a typical day, but could change quickly with heavy rainfall: ...sometimes without warning, a heavy thunderstorm high on the mountain changed it into a roaring, tearing monster. At night, after a storm, we could hear the giant rocks being pushed and crushed together by its force. Trees, loosened by the flood, crashed into the water to be swept downstream. As with Elkmont to the east, Townsend sought to promote the Tremont area as a summer resort.