Indian Head Rock getting a face-lift

It's considered really poor form if your face falls off. So officials from a couple of federal agencies have come together to perform a little preventive maintenance on a well-known geological feature in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to make sure it lasts for future generations and does not become a safety hazard.

Indian Head Rock, an outcropping that rises 50 feet over Little River Road about three miles from the Townsend Wye, got its name from the fact that, from either side, it looks like the profile of an American Indian. It has loomed over the road ever since there was a road, but National Park Service officials are at a loss to say when or from whom it got its name.

But the rock has become unstable because of erosive natural forces to the extent that the Park Service and the Federal Highway Administration are working together to strengthen and stabilize it.