Cumberland River
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The Cumberland River is an important waterway in the southern United States. It is 687 miles (1,106 km) long. It starts in Letcher County in eastern Kentucky on the Cumberland Plateau, flows through southeastern Kentucky before crossing into northern Tennessee, and then curves back up into western Kentucky before draining into the Ohio River at Smithland, Kentucky. The native American name for the Cumberland River was the Warrito.
In 1748, Dr. Thomas Walker led a party of hunters across the Appalachian Mountains from Virginia. Walker, a Virginian, was an explorer and surveyor of renown, and is described as a man of mark among the pioneers. They gave the name "Cumberland" to the lofty range of mountains they crossed, in honor of Cumberland, a picturesque region of lakes and mountains in northern England. Walker's party pursued their journey by way of the Cumberland Gap into what is today Tennessee. Finding a beautiful mountain stream flowing across their course they called it the "Cumberland River." It is probable that Walker's party hunted along the river as far as French Lick, and from there back to Virginia through Kentucky.
Previous to Walker's trip, the Cumberland River had been called Warioto by Native Americans and Shauvanon by French traders. The river was also known as the Shawnee River (or Shawanoe River) for years after Walker's trip. [link]
The Cumberland River is a wild river above the headwaters of Lake Cumberland. Cumberland Falls, a 68-foot waterfall on this section of river, is one of the largest waterfalls in the eastern United States, and the only place in the Western Hemisphere where a moonbow can be seen. Most of the river below Lake Cumberland's Wolf Creek Dam is navigable because of a number of locks and dams. A 90 mile section of its Big South Fork is protected by the National Park Service as Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area.
Dams at various locations of the Cumberland River have created large reservoirs for recreation such as Lake Barkley in western Kentucky and Lake Cumberland (the deepest lake in the Tennessee and Cumberland river valleys) in southern Kentucky, and Old Hickory Lake to the east of Nashville. Laurel Lake, on the Laurel River in southern Kentucky, the Dale Hollow Reservoir on the Obey River in northeast middle Tennessee, and Percy Priest Lake on the Stones River in Nashville are each created by dams just upstream from their respective confluence with the Cumberland River.
Several American Civil War battles occurred near the Cumberland River, including the battle for Fort Donelson. The Union Army of the Cumberland was named after the river.
Source: Early History of Middle Tennessee by Edward Albright, 1908
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