Because cut-and-run-style clearcutting was destroying the natural beauty of the area, by the 20th century visitors and locals banded together to raise money for preservation of the land. The U.S. National Park Service wanted a park in the eastern United States, but did not have much money to establish one. David Chapman, a Knoxville, Tennessee business leader, was appointed in 1925 to head a commission to establish a national park here. Congress authorized the park in 1926, but there was no nucleus of federally owned land around which to develop it. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. contributed $5 million, the U.S. government added $2 million, and private citizens from Tennessee and North Carolina pitched in to assemble the land for the park, piece by piece.