Mount Sequoyah is named after the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet. While it's doubtful that Sequoyah ever visited the mountain, numerous Cherokee villages dotted the base of the southeastern Smokies when European settlers arrived in the early 18th century. Arnold Guyot crossed Mount Sequoyah on his survey of the Smokies crest in the late 1850s. Guyot referred to the mountain as The Three Brothers, and measured its elevation at . The mountain rarely saw a human presence until a segment of the Appalachian Trail was constructed across its summit in 1935.