While the mountain communities in the surrounding valleys began to modernize to some extent after World War I, the Walker Sisters clung to the old way of life, which emphasized self-reliance. The sisters raised sheep and grew corn and cotton, sometimes plowing their own fields. They made their own clothes from the wool and cotton they had raised, and became well known for their Christmas feasts, which consisted almost wholly of food they had grown themselves. In 1933, the Great Smoky Mountains Park Commission, charged with purchasing property for the creation of the national park, unsuccessfully tried to persuade the Walker Sisters to sell their land. Fearing bad publicity, the Commission refused to initiate a condemnation suit. The Walker Sisters finally agreed to sell the property in 1941 in exchange for a lifetime lease.