The Little Pigeon River is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

located entirely within Sevier County,

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 ...

. It rises from a series of streams which flow together on the dividing ridge between the states of

and

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 ...

, with most of the flow from inside the boundary of the

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, whi ...

. The river has three main forks or prongs, East, Middle, and West. The East and Middle prongs are less notable divisions of the river, with the Middle Prong emerging from the Greenbrier area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and paralleled for most of its remaining length by State Route 416 up to its confluence with the East Fork near

U.S. Route 411 U.S. Route 411 (US 411) is an alternate parallel-highway associated with US 11. US 411 extends for about from US 78 in Leeds, Alabama, to US 25W/ US 70 in Newport, Tennessee. US 411 travels through no ...

. The East Fork is the only division in which the main stem does not emerge from the national park, formed by a series of small streams in the foothills of

English Mountain English Mountain is a mountain located in the western foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains region of East Tennessee. Rising to a peak of 3,629 feet, it is known for offering scenic fall colors within a convenient drive from Knoxville. A few ru ...

draining large portions of the Camp Hollow, Pearl Valley, Ball Hollow, and Jones Cove valleys and running along State Road 339. The Harrisburg Covered Bridge is a landmark structure from the 1800s that crosses the East Fork. The West Fork is far better known because it drains the major tourist towns of

Gatlinburg Gatlinburg is a mountain resort city in Sevier County, Tennessee, United States. It is located southeast of Knoxville and had a population of 3,944 at the 2010 Census and a U.S. Census population of 3,577 in 2020. It is a popular vacation resort ...

and

Pigeon Forge Pigeon Forge is a mountain resort city in Sevier County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 6,343. Situated just 5 miles (8 km) north of Great Smoky Mountains National Par ...

. The Old Mill of Pigeon Forge, a working grist mill constructed in 1830 by Isaac Love on a milldam impoundment of the West Fork in downtown

, is one of the best examples of 19th century

hydropower Hydropower (from el, ὕδωρ, "water"), also known as water power, is the use of falling or fast-running water to Electricity generation, produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by energy transformation, converting the Pot ...

technology, as well as being one of the most photographed mills in America. The confluence of the West and East forks is at

Sevierville Sevierville ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Sevier County, Tennessee, located in eastern Tennessee. The population was 17,889 at the 2020 United States Census. History Native Americans of the Woodland period were among the first human ...

at Forks of the River. From there the stream continues to flow northward, paralleled by

State Route 66 The following highways are numbered 66: Australia * Barkly Highway (Northern Territory) * Riddoch Highway Canada * Alberta Highway 66 * Highway 66 (Ontario) Finland * Kantatie 66 ( Orivesi — Lapua) France * A66 autoroute Germany * Bu ...

, until its 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 forms ...

just downstream from

Douglas Dam Douglas Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the French Broad River in Sevier County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The dam is operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which built the dam in record time in the early 1940s to me ...

. Despite its name, it is not a tributary of the nearby Pigeon River, which flows into the French Broad well above Douglas Dam and the resultant

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

References

Tributaries of the French Broad River Rivers of Tennessee Rivers of Sevier County, Tennessee Great Smoky Mountains National Park Gatlinburg, Tennessee {{Tennessee-river-stub

See also

References