The Great Smoky Mountain National Park of North Carolina and Tennessee includes 16 mountains over 6,000 feet (about 2,000 m) high, making this generally the highest region in North America east of the Mississippi River. Gatlinburg is a mile (1.6 km) lower than Mt. Le Conte, a relief not much smaller than in many of the great mountain parks of the west, where the peaks are higher but so are the valleys. The Smokies were preserved in a park in 1926, with much of the funding for land purchases provided by J.D. Rockefeller.