These days, Cheonjeyeon is a popular tourist location located in the Jungmun area near where some of Jeju's largest and fanciest hotels are. However, near the entrance to the waterfalls, there is some dark history.

At Cheonjeyeon, there were several cases of citizens being executed - December 4, 1948 (four people from Sangye-ri and two people from Haye-ri), December 17, 1948 (one person from Saekdal-ri), January 8, 1949 (two people from Saekdal-ri), and on January 4, 1949. In total, over a period of four occasions, 40 people from Jungmun-myeon were executed here.

The reason for the executions were several attacks on government buildings in Jungmun by the armed resistance group on November 5, 1948. Other reasons listed for arrest was the banning of civilians in the mid-mountain region and the idea of preventive detention (arresting people who are suspected of causing trouble in the future).

On January 4, 1949 the largest of the executions at Cheonjeyeon occurred. On that day, people remember that a lieutenant from the army went from village to village carrying a list, and those who were on that list were brought to Cheonjeyeon and executed. As with many of those executed during the 4.3 Incident, virtually all had little or no direct connection to the resistance group, but were distant relatives of someone or had family members who disappeared into the oreums and mountains around Halla Mountain (and were thus suspected of being members of the armed resistance group).

References

Jeju 4.3 Archives - "천제연" (readable here in Korean)