Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state' ...
. Along with its three major forks (North Fork, Middle Fork and South Fork), it comprises a major river system that drains much of northeastern
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
, southwestern
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
, and northwestern
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
. The Holston's confluence with the
French Broad River
The French Broad River is a river in the U.S. states of North Carolina and Tennessee. It flows from near the town of Rosman in Transylvania County, North Carolina, into Tennessee, where its confluence with the Holston River at Knoxville form ...
at Knoxville marks the beginning of the
Tennessee River
The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 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 name ...
.
The North Fork flows southwest from Sharon Springs in Bland County, Virginia. The Middle Fork flows from near the western border of
Wythe County, Virginia
Wythe County is a county located in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 28,290. Its county seat is Wytheville.
History
Wythe County was formed from Montgomery County in 1790. It wa ...
, joining the South Fork in
Washington County, Virginia
Washington County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 53,935. Its county seat is Abingdon.
Washington County is part of the Kingsport–Bristol–Bristol, TN-VA Metropolitan Statis ...
Smyth County
Smyth County is a county located in the U.S. state of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 29,800. Its county seat is Marion.
History
Smyth County was formed on February 23, 1832, from Washington and Wythe counties. The county ...
and flows southwest to join the North Fork at Kingsport. The
Watauga River
The Watauga River () is a large stream of western North Carolina and East Tennessee. It is long with its headwaters in Linville Gap to the South Fork Holston River at Boone Lake.
Course
The Watauga River rises from a spring near the base ...
, a tributary of the South Fork Holston, flows westward from
Watauga County, North Carolina
Watauga County ( ) from the North Carolina Collection's website at the .
The main stem of the Holston is impounded by the
Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...
's
Cherokee Dam
Cherokee Dam is a hydroelectric dam located on the Holston River in Grainger County and Jefferson County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The dam is operated and maintained by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in t ...
near
Jefferson City, Tennessee
Jefferson City (originally named Mossy Creek) is a city in Jefferson County, Tennessee, United States. It is part of the Morristown Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 census the population was 8,419.
History
Heading southwest along ...
. Five other dams, also managed by TVA, impound the Holston's headwater streams:
Watauga Dam
Watauga Dam is a hydroelectric and flood control dam on the Watauga River in Carter County, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the 1940s as part of efforts to contro ...
and
Wilbur Dam
Wilbur Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Watauga River in Carter County, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is one of two dams on the river owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The dam impounds Wilbur Lake, which extends for abou ...
on the Watauga River, and
Boone Dam
Boone Dam is a hydroelectric and flood control dam on the South Fork Holston River on the border between Sullivan County and Washington County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is one of three dams on the South Fork Holston owned and operated ...
,
Fort Patrick Henry Dam
Fort Patrick Henry Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the South Fork Holston River within the city of Kingsport, in Sullivan County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the lowermost of three dams on the South Fork Holston owned and operated by the ...
, and
South Holston Dam
South Holston Dam is a hydroelectric and flood control dam on the South Fork Holston River in Sullivan County, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the uppermost of three dams on the South Fork Holston owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley ...
, on the South Fork Holston River.
Power generation
The Holston River valley has been greatly developed for
electrical
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...
dam
A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use ...
s and
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when ...
-fired steam plants. In the upper reaches, some of these plants are controlled by private interests; in the downstream portion, they are owned by the
United States Government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...
's
Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...
.
Area
Among the dams and associated reservoirs on the South Fork Holston River are
Boone Dam
Boone Dam is a hydroelectric and flood control dam on the South Fork Holston River on the border between Sullivan County and Washington County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is one of three dams on the South Fork Holston owned and operated ...
and
Boone Lake
Boone Lake is a reservoir in Sullivan and Washington counties in northeastern Tennessee, formed by the impoundment of the South Fork Holston River and Watauga River behind Boone Dam.
, named for the explorer
Daniel Boone
Daniel Boone (September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyond the we ...
;
Fort Patrick Henry Dam
Fort Patrick Henry Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the South Fork Holston River within the city of Kingsport, in Sullivan County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the lowermost of three dams on the South Fork Holston owned and operated by the ...
and Fort Patrick Henry Lake, named for the Revolutionary War hero; and
South Holston Dam
South Holston Dam is a hydroelectric and flood control dam on the South Fork Holston River in Sullivan County, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the uppermost of three dams on the South Fork Holston owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley ...
and
South Holston Lake
South Holston Lake is located near the cities of Abingdon, Virginia and Bristol, Virginia / Bristol, Tennessee, and is a impoundment operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Much of the reservoir is in Tennessee, but the Virginia portio ...
.
Cherokee Dam
Cherokee Dam is a hydroelectric dam located on the Holston River in Grainger County and Jefferson County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The dam is operated and maintained by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in t ...
on the Holston River forms
Cherokee Lake
Cherokee Lake, also known as Cherokee Reservoir, is an artificial reservoir in the U.S. state of Tennessee formed by the impoundment of the Holston River behind Cherokee Dam.
Hydrology
The reservoir has a surface area of about , a flood-storage ...
, named for the historic Native Americans who occupied extensive areas along the Holston River at the time of European-American settlement. The United States settlers and army fought with the
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
over land in Tennessee, North Carolina, and further South into Georgia and Alabama. In the 1830s the government forced the Cherokee out on the
Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears was an ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the " Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government. As part of the Indian removal, members of the Cherokee, ...
to
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...
(now Oklahoma) west of the Mississippi River, under the authority of the
Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law on May 28, 1830, by United States President Andrew Jackson. The law, as described by Congress, provided "for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for ...
passed by Congress in 1830.
Name
Maps by early French explorers in this area identified what is now known as the Holston River as the "Cherokee River", after the tribe they encountered. Early Tennessee historian and
Tennessee Supreme Court
The Tennessee Supreme Court is the ultimate judicial tribunal of the state of Tennessee. Roger A. Page is the Chief Justice.
Unlike other states, in which the state attorney general is directly elected or appointed by the governor or state leg ...
Justice John Haywood cited in his 1823 book ''The civil and political history of the state of Tennessee from its earliest settlement up to the year 1796, including the boundaries of the state'' that the Holston River was identified and named on earlier produced French maps as the "Cherokee River".
British colonists later named the Holston River after pioneer Stephen Holstein, a European-American settler who built a cabin in 1746 on the upper reaches of the river. Similarly,
Holston Mountain
Holston Mountain is a mountain ridge in Upper East Tennessee and southwest Virginia, in the United States. It is in the Blue Ridge Mountains part of the Appalachian Mountains. Holston Mountain is a very prominent ridge-type mountain in Tennesse ...
was named after the Holston River.
Recreation
All three forks in Virginia, South Holston Lake, and the Holston River in Tennessee below the South Holston Dam offer relatively easy-to-reach recreation opportunities. The North Fork in Virginia is known as an excellent smallmouth bass river (due to mercury contamination, fish caught in the North Fork of the Holston below
Saltville, Virginia
Saltville is a town in Smyth and Washington counties in the U.S. state of Virginia. The population was 2,077 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Kingsport– Bristol (TN)– Bristol (VA) Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is a compon ...
must not be consumed). Both the South Fork in Virginia and the first of the Holston in Tennessee below South Holston Dam are quality brown trout and
rainbow trout
The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead (sometimes called "steelhead trout") is an anadromous (sea-run) form of the coasta ...
fisheries. The Holston River is wide and open enough to allow extensive fly fishing. South Holston Lake offers a variety of fishing opportunity as well, as it contains smallmouth bass, common carp,
walleye
The walleye (''Sander vitreus'', synonym ''Stizostedion vitreum''), also called the yellow pike or yellow pickerel, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern United States. It is a North American close relat ...
,
pike
Pike, Pikes or The Pike may refer to:
Fish
* Blue pike or blue walleye, an extinct color morph of the yellow walleye ''Sander vitreus''
* Ctenoluciidae, the "pike characins", some species of which are commonly known as pikes
* ''Esox'', genus of ...
The following is a list of major road crossings on the Holston River:
South Fork Holston River
The following is a list of major road crossings on the South Fork Holston River:
North Fork Holston River
Middle Fork Holston River
The following is a list of major road crossings on the Middle Fork Holston River:
See also
*
List of Tennessee rivers
This is a list of rivers of the U.S. state of Tennessee:
By drainage basin
This list is arranged by drainage basin, with respective tributaries indented under each larger stream's name. All rivers in Tennessee ultimately flow to the Gulf of Mex ...
*
List of Virginia rivers
This is a list of rivers in the U.S. state of Virginia.
By drainage basin
This list is arranged by drainage basin, with respective tributaries, arranged in the order of their confluence from mouth to source, indented under each larger stream's nam ...
*
Watauga River
The Watauga River () is a large stream of western North Carolina and East Tennessee. It is long with its headwaters in Linville Gap to the South Fork Holston River at Boone Lake.
Course
The Watauga River rises from a spring near the base ...
*
Doe River
The Doe River is a tributary of the Watauga River in northeast Tennessee in the United States. The river forms in Carter County near the North Carolina line, just south of Roan Mountain State Park, and flows to Elizabethton.
Hydrography
The D ...
*
Saltville, Virginia
Saltville is a town in Smyth and Washington counties in the U.S. state of Virginia. The population was 2,077 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Kingsport– Bristol (TN)– Bristol (VA) Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is a compon ...