Calhoun House is the only structure that remains intact from when the town of Proctor stood here. The house was built in 1928, which was about the same time the town began to decline. It is still standing because it was used for a time as a bunkhouse for park service employees.
The area is now an open field located along Hazel Creek. Proctor had started as a sleepy farming community in 1886. Soon after tracks for Southern Railway brought the first train here in 1907, Proctor became a boomtown built by a logging company.
W.M. Ritter Lumber Company, which grew to become the largest hardwood lumber company in the world, began operating a large sawmill here in 1910.
Businesses and homes sprang up, and the town grew to a population of 1,000 residents. The boomtown days ended when most of the trees were gone and Ritter closed the sawmill.
Proctor receded back to a quiet farming community until 1944 when the remaining residents were forced to leave and the land became part of the national park.
One space that wasn't removed when the park was formed is the cemetery, though many gravestones have become worn with age. A section of the cemetery is devoted to graves of children, and many are for infants who died of Spanish Influenza in 1918-1919.