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Tennessee River

 
Dictionary: Tennessee River
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A river of the southeast United States rising in eastern Tennessee and flowing about 1,049 km (652 mi) through northern Alabama, western Tennessee, and western Kentucky to the Ohio River.

 

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Tennessee River
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Navigable river, Tennessee, northern Alabama, and western Kentucky, U.S. Formed by the confluence of the Holston and French Broad rivers in eastern Tennessee, it flows 652 mi (1,049 km) before joining the Ohio River in Kentucky. During the American Civil War it served as a strategic invasion route into the western Confederacy. Its development as one of the world's greatest irrigation and hydropower systems began with the establishment in 1933 of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The Tennessee River is linked to the Tombigbee River by the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway.

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US History Encyclopedia: Tennessee River
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Tennessee River, formed by the confluence of the Holston River and the French Broad River, near Knoxville, Tennessee, follows a serpentine course into northern Alabama and from there northward to the Ohio River at Paducah, Kentucky. The length of the main stream is 652 miles, and the total drainage area is 40,569 square miles. Called for a time the Cherokee River, it was used extensively by Indians on war and hunting expeditions, especially by the Cherokees, some of whose towns were located along the branches of the river in southeast Tennessee. In the mid-eighteenth century, the Tennessee Valley played an important part in the Anglo-French rivalry for the control of the Old Southwest that culminated in the French and Indian War. The river was also an important route for migration of settlers into the Southwest after that war.

Use of the river for navigation was handicapped by the presence of serious obstructions, especially the Muscle and Colbert shoals at the "Great Bend" in northern Alabama. The problem of removing or obviating the obstructions to navigation has been a perennial one that has received spasmodic attention from the federal government as well as from the states of Tennessee and Alabama, including a grant of public lands to Alabama in 1828 for the construction of a canal, and several subsequent surveys and appropriations. In the twentieth century, discussion of the river shifted from navigation to power production and flood control. During World War I, construction of the Wilson Dam and nitrate plants at the Muscle Shoals initiated a nationwide controversy over the question of public or private ownership and operation of power facilities. Since the New Deal created the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in 1933, the river has been the subject of an extensive program involving navigation and flood control, fertilizer experimentation, and the production and sale of electric power, all of which fueled the social and economic transformation of the Tennessee Valley. The river has been made into a chain of reservoirs, or lakes, held back by nine major dams. As a result of TVA improvements, freight traffic on the Tennessee, which had been one million tons in 1933, had reached twenty-seven million tons per year by the early 1970s. By 1985, the 234-mile Tenn-Tom waterway opened, connecting the river's Pickwick Lake to the Tombigbee River at Demopolis, Alabama.

Bibliography

Colignon, Richard A. Power Plays: Critical Events in the Institutionalization of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.

Davidson, Donald. Tennessee: The Old River, Frontier to Secession. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1978.

Droze, Wilmon Henry. High Dams and Slack Waters: TVA Rebuilds a River. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Tennessee
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Tennessee, river, c.650 mi (1,050 km) long, the principal tributary of the Ohio River. It is formed by the confluence of the Holston and French Broad rivers near Knoxville, Tenn., and follows a U-shaped course to enter the Ohio River at Paducah, Ky. Its drainage basin covers c.41,000 sq mi (106,200 sq km) and includes parts of seven states. Navigation was long impeded by variations in channel depths and by rapids, such as Muscle Shoals. However, the Tennessee Valley Authority (est. 1933) has converted the river into a chain of lakes held back by nine major dams (Kentucky, Pickwick Landing, Wilson, Wheeler, Guntersville, Nickajack, Chickamauga, Watts Bar, and Fort Loudoun). As a result of these improvements, river traffic increased; flooding was controlled; a water-oriented recreation industry was established; and hydroelectric power generated at the dams attracted new industries to the region. The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, opened in 1985, links the Tennessee with the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Tombigbee and Mobile rivers. During the Civil War, the Tennessee River was a prime approach for a Union invasion of the South; several great battles were fought there (see Fort Henry; Shiloh, battle of; Chattanooga campaign).

Geography: Tennessee River
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River formed by the confluence of two other rivers near Knoxville, Tennessee; it follows a U-shaped course to enter the Ohio River in western Kentucky.

Wikipedia: Tennessee River
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This article is about the river. For the song, see Tennessee River (song).
Tennessee River
Tennessee River Airl.jpg
The Tennessee River in downtown Knoxville from the top of Neyland Stadium.
Origin Confluence of French Broad and Holston at Knoxville.
Mouth Ohio River at Paducah, Kentucky
Basin countries USA
Length 652 mi (1049 km) [1]
Source elevation 813 ft (248 m) [2]
Mouth elevation 302 ft (92 m) [3]
Avg. discharge 70,575 ft3/s (2,000 m³/s) [4]
Basin area 40,876 mi² (105,870 km²) [4]
The John Ross Bridge, spanning the Tennessee River in Chattanooga.
The "Steamboat Bill" Hudson Memorial Bridge in Decatur, Alabama.
Natchez Trace Parkway, crossing the Tennessee River in Cherokee, Alabama
Map of the Tennessee Watershed

The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 652 miles (1049 km) long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names.[1]

Contents

Course

The Tennessee River is formed at the confluence of the Holston and French Broad Rivers on the east side of Knoxville, Tennessee. From Knoxville, it flows southwest through East Tennessee toward Chattanooga before crossing into Alabama. It loops through northern Alabama and eventually forms a small part of the state's border with Mississippi, before returning to Tennessee. At this point, it defines the boundary between Tennessee's other two Grand Divisions: Middle and West Tennessee. The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project providing navigation on the Tombigbee River and a link to the Port of Mobile, enters Tennessee near the Tennessee-Alabama-Mississippi boundary. This waterway reduces the navigation distance from Tennessee, north Alabama, and northern Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico by hundreds of miles. The final part of the Tennessee's run is in Kentucky, where it separates the Jackson Purchase from the rest of the state. It then flows into the Ohio River at Paducah, Kentucky. It is one of a very few rivers in the United States which leave a state and then re-enter it; the Cumberland River is another such river.

Dams

The river has been dammed numerous times, primarily by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) projects. The placement of TVA's Kentucky Dam on the Tennessee River and the Corps' Barkley Dam on the Cumberland River directly led to the creation of Land Between the Lakes. A navigation canal located at Grand Rivers, Kentucky links Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley. The canal allows for a shorter trip for river traffic going from the Tennessee to most of the Ohio River, and for traffic going down the Cumberland River toward the Mississippi.

Important cities and towns

Cities in bold type have more than 30,000 residents

History

Beginning

Fish catch near Wilson Dam on the Tennessee River around 1940.

Officially the Tennessee River begins at mile post 652, where the French Broad River meets the Holston River. According to Tennessee Valley Authority historians,[citation needed] until 1933 the river that flowed past Knoxville was designated the Holston River, and the Tennessee River was considered to begin at the confluence of the Holston and the Little Tennessee River at Lenoir City 51 miles downstream and 601 miles upstream from the Ohio River at Paducah, Kentucky. The nomenclature was changed in 1933 due to a Congressional mandate that the Tennessee Valley Authority headquarters be located on the banks of the Tennessee River. Because the TVA headquarters were to be located in downtown Knoxville, the confluence of the Holston and French Broad Rivers was designated to be the beginning of the Tennessee River, placing the beginning of the river upstream from Knoxville.

Water rights and border dispute with Georgia

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 This article's factual accuracy is disputed. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page. (April 2008)

At various points since the early 19th century, Georgia has disputed its northern border with Tennessee, thereby denying Georgia its historical riparian and navigation rights to the waters of the Tennessee River. In 1796, when Tennessee was admitted to the Union, the border was originally defined by United States Congress as located on the 35th parallel, thereby ensuring that at least a portion of the river would be located within Georgia. As a result of an erroneously conducted survey in 1818 (ratified by the Tennessee legislature but not Georgia), however, the actual border line was set on the ground approximately one mile south, thus placing the disputed portion of the river entirely in Tennessee.[5][6]

Georgia made several unsuccessful attempts to correct what Georgia felt was an erroneous survey line 'in the 1890s, 1905, 1915, 1922, 1941, 1947 and 1971 to "resolve" the dispute', according to C. Crews Townsend, Joseph McCoin, Robert F. Parsley, Alison Martin and Zachary H. Greene, writing for the Tennessee Bar Journal, a publication of the Tennessee Bar Association, appearing on May 12, 2008.

In 2008, as a result of a serious drought and resulting water shortage, the Georgia General Assembly passed a resolution directing the governor to pursue its claim in the United States Supreme Court.[7][8]

Many Tennessee lawmakers have dismissed the Georgia claims and are mounting a legislative challenge to keep the border where it is.[citation needed]

Modern use

The Tennessee River is an important part of the Great Loop, the recreational circumnavigation of Eastern North America by water.

Popular culture

Tennessee River tributaries

Tributaries and sub-tributaries are hierarchically listed in order from the mouth of the Tennessee River upstream.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b USGS GNIS: Tennessee River
  2. ^ U.S. Geological Survey. Shooks Gap quadrangle, Tennessee. 1:24,000. 7.5 Minute Series. Washington D.C.: USGS, 1987.
  3. ^ U.S. Geological Survey. Paducah East quadrangle, Kentucky. 1:24,000. 7.5 Minute Series. Washington D.C.: USGS, 1982.
  4. ^ a b "Arthur Benke & Colbert Cushing, "Rivers of North America". Elsevier Academic Press, 2005 ISBN 0-12-088253-1
  5. ^ "Georgians thirst to move Tennessee state line". February 8, 2008. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23076509/. Retrieved 2008-05-13. 
  6. ^ "Desperate for water, Georgia revisits border dispute". February 8, 2008. http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/08/drought.state.line.ap/. Retrieved 2008-05-13. 
  7. ^ Jones, Andrea (February 20, 2008). "Ga.'s quest to move Tenn. border advances". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/02/20/tennborder_0221.html. Retrieved 2008-05-14. 
  8. ^ Dewan, Shaila (February 22, 2008). "Georgia Claims a Sliver of the Tennessee River". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/22/us/22water.html?em&ex=1203829200&en=9fe2c2ffaf5be75a&ei=5087%0A. Retrieved 2008-05-14. 
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Alabama Department of Transportation (1997). "County Highway Maps" (Lizardtech Plugin). University of Alabama. http://cartweb.geography.ua.edu:9001/StyleServer/calcrgn?cat=North%20America%20and%20United%20States&item=States/Alabama/Counties/colbert/hy_colbert97.sid&wid=500&hei=400&props=item(Name,Description),cat(Name,Description)&style=simple/view.xsl&plugin=true. Retrieved 2007-06-25. 
  10. ^ a b c d Army Corp of Engineers (1997). "Tennessee River Navigation Charts". Army Corp of Engineers. http://www.lrn.usace.army.mil/opn/TNRiver/. Retrieved 2007-07-04. 

Further reading

  • Woodside, M.D. et al. (2004). Water quality in the lower Tennessee River Basin, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Georgia, 1999-2001 [U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1233]. Reston, VA: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey.
  • Myers, Fred (2004). Tennessee River CruiseGuide, 5th Edition

External links

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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
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US History Encyclopedia. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
Geography. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Tennessee River".  Read more