Watauga River

State: North Carolina, Tennessee

Lat/Long: 36.1167, -81.8333

Sixty miles in length, the Watagua River rises in northwestern North Carolina and flows northwest into Tennessee, before emptying into the Holston River southeast of Kingsport. Between 1769 and 1775, white settlers from North Carolina and Virginia crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains by way of Boone's Gap settled in the Watauga Valley. Settlers into this area became the nucleus of settlers that moved into Tennessee and other areas west of the mountains.

Webster's New Geographical Dictionary (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1988), 1322.