Tellico Village is an unincorporated

planned community A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...

, and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

on the western shore of

Tellico Reservoir Tellico Dam is a concrete gravity and earthen embankment dam on the Little Tennessee River that was built by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in Loudon County, Tennessee. Planning for a dam structure on the Little Tennessee was reported ...

in Loudon County,

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. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

, United States, about southwest of

Knoxville Knoxville is a city in Knox County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the Tennessee River and had a population of 190,740 at the 2020 United States census. It is the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division ...

. Its population was 5,791 as of the 2010 census and and 7,311 at the 2020 census. Tellico Village is the second largest area by population in Loudon County behind Lenoir City. Tellico Village is a planned

retirement community A retirement community is a residential community or housing complex designed for older adults who are generally able to care for themselves. Assistance from home care agencies is allowed in some communities, and activities and socialization op ...

. Governmental functions are managed by the Tellico Village Property Owners Association.

Demographics

History

The origins of Tellico Village date back to the late 1960s with the plan known as Timberlake, a planned city that would have been located along the shores of the Tellico Reservoir in Loudon, Blount, and

Monroe Monroe or Monroes may refer to: People and fictional characters * Monroe (surname) * Monroe (given name) * James Monroe, 5th President of the United States * Marilyn Monroe, actress and model Places United States * Monroe, Arkansas, an unincorp ...

counties, and the communities of Tellico Village, Greenback, and Vonore. The city, would have been able to support a population base of roughly 30,000 residents, and provide employment opportunities with commercial and industrial developments. Tellico Village was created along the shores of Tellico Lake, which was formed due to 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 ...

(TVA) damming the

Little Tennessee River The Little Tennessee River (known locally as the Little T) is a tributary of the Tennessee River that flows through the Blue Ridge Mountains from Georgia, into North Carolina, and then into Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. It dra ...

at its confluence with the

Tennessee River The Tennessee River is a long river located in the Southern United States, southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. Flowing through the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, it begins at the confluence of Fren ...

Tellico Dam Tellico Dam is a concrete gravity and earthen embankment dam on the Little Tennessee River that was built by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in Loudon County, Tennessee. Planning for a dam structure on the Little Tennessee was reported a ...

was completed in November 1979 after a long battle, which involved the

Endangered Species Act of 1973 The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting and conserving imperiled species. Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of e ...

and a fish called the

snail darter The snail darter (''Percina tanasi'') is a disputed species of small freshwater ray-finned fish, a darter from the subfamily Etheostomatinae, part of the family Percidae, which also contains the perches, ruffes and pikeperches. Emblematic of th ...

. As part of the project, the TVA acquired additional land above the high water line of the reservoir (Tellico Lake), much of it taken by eminent domain. Part of this additional land was later sold to Cooper Communities, Inc., which established Tellico Village in 1986.

Amenities

The community has three golf courses and a yacht and country club. The names of the golf courses, like the names of the streets and neighborhoods (each neighborhood within Tellico Village has its own name) are derived from American Indian words and names, mostly

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

. These include '' Toqua'', meaning "fish," and ''

Tanasi Tanasi (; also rendered Tanase, Tenasi, Tenassee, Tunissee, Tennessee, and other such variations) was a historic Overhill settlement site in present-day Monroe County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The village became the namesak ...

'', which was the name of a town that was the capital of the

Cherokee Nation The Cherokee Nation ( or ) is the largest of three list of federally recognized tribes, federally recognized tribes of Cherokees in the United States. It includes people descended from members of the Cherokee Nation (1794–1907), Old Cheroke ...

between 1721 and 1730. "Tanasi" is also the word from which the name "Tennessee" was derived.

Postal Service

The postal addresses for the community are Loudon (37774) and Vonore (37885), Tennessee. Tellico Village did have a branch post office through a More Than Mail! store but the store's Postal service contract was terminated in November 2013. It operated for 15 years. Another Contract Postal Unit (CPU) branch has since opened in Tellico Village inside Sloans Hardware.https://tools.usps.com/locations/details/1463396

References

External links