Watauga River - History

History

The word "Watauga" comes from the Cherokee, who had several towns so named, including one at present-day Elizabethton, which became known as "Watauga Old Fields", first explored by Daniel Boone and James Robertson in 1759. A larger Cherokee town called Watauga was located on the Little Tennessee River near Franklin, North Carolina. The Cherokee word is more accurately written Watagi. Other common spellings include Watoda, Wattoogee, and Whatoga. A North Carolina State University web page (The Watauga Medal) cites that the word "Watauga" is a Native-American word meaning "the land beyond", however local reference to the name origin is attributed to the meaning "beautiful river" or "beautiful water".

The original settlers of Nashville, Tennessee, set out from the Watauga River area, called the Watauga Association, during the American Revolution when they realized that the British Proclamation of 1763 forbidding settlement of its colonists west of the Blue Ridge Mountains was essentially unenforceable.

Wibur Dam is the site of first hydroelectric dam constructed in Tennessee (beginning in 1909), going online with power production and distribution in 1912. It was constructed by the former Tennessee Electric Power Company, a privately-owned utility purchased by TVA in the late 1930s. Elizabethton acquired the moniker "City of Power" because of the early local access to hydro-generated electricity from Wilbur Dam.