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The forgotten Japanese naturalist who created a U.S. national park

George Masa is virtually unknown in Japan, but his conservations efforts are bearing fruit

Without Japanese outdoorsman George Masa, America might not have the Great Smoky Mountains National Park — so why do so many people in Japan not know he existed? | COURTESY OF THE BUNCOMBE COUNTY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, PACK MEMORIAL LIBRARY

By Drew Damron
Contributing writer

Oct 7, 2024

In late 2021, David Huff came across a screening of the documentary “The Mystery of George Masa,” and despite being a longtime resident of North Carolina, United States, the American photographer knew nothing of this enigmatic immigrant from Japan who found his way to the Appalachian region more than a century prior.

“Despite living in Asheville for many years, I had never heard of George Masa,” says Huff, 59. “He is mythological in a way — no one really knows him, (and yet) he was an instrumental player in creating the most ecologically diverse, most visited national park in the U.S.”

In 1901, a man who went by the name George Masa immigrated to the United States from Japan. He claimed to have been born in Osaka in 1881 and that his birth name was Masahara Iizuka. First landing in Oregon (some records show that he joined a traveling baseball team), he made his way east and settled in Asheville, North Carolina, by 1915.