The Sequatchie River is a waterway that drains the Sequatchie Valley, a large valley in the

Cumberland Plateau The Cumberland Plateau is the southern part of the Appalachian Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. It includes much of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and portions of northern Alabama and northwest Georgia. The terms " Al ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 36th-largest by ...

. It empties into 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 ...

downstream from

Chattanooga Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, ...

near the Tennessee-

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = " Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County , LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham , area_total_km2 = 135,7 ...

state line.

Hydrography

The Sequatchie River originates from several springs at or nea
Devilstep Hollow Cave
including the spring, Head of the Sequatchie. Dye traces establish the origin of their water as originating from Grassy Cove, the pastoral limestone sinkhole located to the north-east. The Sequatchie River follows the general trend of the Sequatchie Valley, flowing south-west for . Sequatchie-river-pikeville-tn1

The stream crosses into Bledsoe County near the head of the Sequatchie Valley. The Sequatchie Valley is traversed throughout much its length by U.S. Route 127. The first sizeable town on the Sequatchie is Pikeville, the county seat of Bledsoe. State Route 30, which descends Walden's Ridge into the Valley and then climbs the

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''esca ...

back onto the plateau, crosses here. Crossing into Sequatchie County, the stream flows into Dunlap. Just north of Dunlap, US 127 turns southeastward, beginning the ascent onto Walden Ridge and eventually down into

. A set of railroad tracks previously ran along the river from this point, testament to heavy underground

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 ...

extraction in years past. For almost the rest of its length the Sequatchie is paralleled by State Route 28. State Route 283 also runs along the base of the Walden's Ridge escarpment for several miles. The river then enters Marion County. The town of Whitwell is just a few miles into Marion County. Below Whitwell at the small community of Sequatchie (also known as Sequachee), the river receives the flow of the

Little Sequatchie River The Little Sequatchie River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 27, 2011 tributary of the Sequatchie River in Tennessee. Unlike its larger namesake, it does not h ...

, which descends from atop the Cumberland Plateau to the west. At

Jasper Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases,Kostov, R. I. 2010. Review on the mineralogical systematics of jasper and related rocks. – Archaeometry Workshop, 7, 3, 209-213PDF/ref ...

, which is slightly west of the river, is a railroad junction. East of town is the crossing of U.S. Highway 41 by SR 28, and the bridge over the river. Shortly south of the

Interstate 24 Interstate 24 (I-24) is an Interstate Highway in the Midwestern and Southeastern United States. It runs diagonally from I-57, south of Marion, Illinois, to Chattanooga, Tennessee, at I-75. It travels through Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, ...

bridge is the mouth of the Sequatchie into the

Guntersville Lake Guntersville Lake (generally referred to locally as Lake Guntersville) is in northern Alabama between Bridgeport and Guntersville. Location The lake stretches 75 miles (121 km) from Guntersville Dam to Nickajack Dam. It is Alabama's largest ...

impoundment of the

References

External links

* {{authority control Rivers of Tennessee Tributaries of the Tennessee River Rivers of Bledsoe County, Tennessee Rivers of Cumberland County, Tennessee Rivers of Sequatchie County, Tennessee Rivers of Marion County, Tennessee

Hydrography

See also

References

External links