The Big South Fork of the Cumberland River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
, accessed June 8, 2011

river A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

s of

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 ...

and

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

. It is a major drainage feature of 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 ...

, a major tributary of the

Cumberland River The Cumberland River is a major waterway of the Southern United States. The U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 8, 2011 river drains almost of southern Kentucky and ...

system, and the major feature of the

Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area The Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, commonly known as Big South Fork, preserves the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River and its tributaries in northeastern Tennessee and southeastern Kentucky. Within it are reminders of t ...

Physical geography

The Big South Fork begins at the

confluence In geography, a confluence (also ''conflux'') occurs where two or more watercourses join to form a single channel (geography), channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main ...

of the New River and the Clear Fork in

Scott County, Tennessee Scott County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, its population was 22,039, down from 22,228 at the 2010 census. Its county seat is Huntsville and the largest town is Oneida. Scott County is known for ...

, and flows northwest, northeast, and north until ending at

Lake Cumberland Lake Cumberland is a reservoir in Clinton, Russell, Wayne, Pulaski and Laurel counties in Kentucky. The primary reasons for its construction were a means for flood control and the production of hydroelectric power. Its shoreline measures 1 ...

McCreary County, Kentucky McCreary County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 16,888. Its county seat is Whitley City. The county is named for James B. McCreary, a Confederate war soldier and two-time Governor ...

, near the town of Burnside. It is the third largest tributary of the

, and is free flowing for a distance of approximately before being affected by the headwaters of the lake. The terrain furthest upstream near the confluence is the most rugged, with

reliefs Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

of as much as . This area is characterized by dendritic draining patterns and narrow

gorge A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tend ...

s, with valleys strewn with large boulders fallen from cliffs above. Major formations include

natural arch A natural arch, natural bridge, or (less commonly) rock arch is a natural landform where an arch has formed with an opening underneath. Natural arches commonly form where inland cliffs, Cliffed coast, coastal cliffs, Fin (geology), fins or Stack ...

es,

mesa A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge, or hill, bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and standing distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks, such as shales, capped by a ...

s, chimneys, cracks and rock shelters. The terrain becomes less rugged as the river travels northward, with reliefs of between and . Soil in the area is divided between two groups. The first is primarily made up of Ramsey, Hartsells, Grimsley, and Gilpin soils and is located adjacent to the river gorge. The second consists of Hartsells, Lonewood, Ramsey, and Gilpin soils and is found on the nearby plateau.

Hydrology

The river draws water from a

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a Geologic time scale, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the ...

rock in the

. Taken together, the Big South Fork and its tributaries drain between and , of which about 17% is covered by the associated National Recreation Area. The maximum recorded water flow on the Big South Fork was , the minimum recorded was , and the river averages a flow of . Around half of the Big South Fork's annual streamflow occurs during the months of January through March, and the lowest streamflow typically occurs during September and October. Along the river basin, water drops from a maximum original elevation of above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...

at Peter's Bridge on the Clear Fork, to where the waters meet the Cumberland. Between the confluence of the New River and Clear Fork, and Leatherwood Ford the river has an average

gradient In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function f of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p gives the direction and the rate of fastest increase. The g ...

across of 20 feet per mile (fpm), and a maximum gradient of 40 fpm. Major tributaries of the Big South Fork include: *New River *Clear Fork River *North Whiteoak Creek *Pine Creek *Station Camp Creek *Parch Corn Creek *No Business Creek *Williams Creek *Troublesome Creek *Bear Creek *Roaring Paunch Creek *Rock Creek *Wolf Creek *Kogar Creek Water quality is generally good, but may be negatively affected by mine drainage,

logging Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidder, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or trunk (botany), logs onto logging truck, trucks Both Tennessee and Kentucky have designated their respective portions of the Big South Fork as Outstanding National Resource Waters, and cleanup and reclamation efforts by a number of organizations have been made.

History

It is likely that the area surrounding the Big South Fork was frequented by

Paleo-Indians Paleo-Indians were the first peoples who entered and subsequently inhabited the Americas towards the end of the Late Pleistocene period. The prefix ''paleo-'' comes from . The term ''Paleo-Indians'' applies specifically to the lithic period in ...

, which continued up until early

colonial times The ''Colonial Times'' was a newspaper in what is now the Australian state of Tasmania. It was established as the ''Colonial Times, and Tasmanian Advertiser'' in 1825 in Hobart, Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colon ...

, although it is not clear that the area was permanently inhabited by prehistoric peoples. No intensive surveys of

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

s had been conducted as of 1977, when the Army Corps of Engineers published their comprehensive study of the area, although one study from the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (or The University of Tennessee; UT; UT Knoxville; or colloquially UTK or Tennessee) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee, United St ...

along with one inter-agency governmental report had identified 21 total sites. A 2005 report by the National Park Service however estimated a total of 10,000 archaeological sites, evenly split between pre and post European contact. The first permanent European settlement was likely in 1769 in modern-day

Wayne County, Kentucky Wayne County is a county in the U.S. state of Kentucky along the southern border with Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 19,555. Its county seat is Monticello. The county, on the south-central border with Tennessee, was name ...

. By 1798, the Treaty of Tellico had officially expelled the native

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 ...

peoples from the river basin, although the land, which was not well suited to

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

, was mostly passed over by settlers until the founding of the ultimately failed colony of

Rugby, Tennessee Rugby is an unincorporated community in Morgan and Scott counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Founded in 1880 by English author Thomas Hughes, Rugby was built as an experimental utopian colony. While Hughes's experiment largely failed, ...

, by

Thomas Hughes Thomas Hughes (20 October 1822 – 22 March 1896) was an English lawyer, judge, politician and author. He is most famous for his novel ''Tom Brown's School Days'' (1857), a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had atte ...

in the 1880s.

Blue Heron

The mining community of modern-day

Blue Heron, Kentucky Blue Heron, also known as Mine 18, is a former coal mining community or coal town on the banks of the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River in McCreary County, Kentucky, United States, that has been recreated and is maintained as an interpreti ...

, was established in 1937 along the banks of the Big South Fork, and operated until 1962 when it was abandoned by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company. Retrieved on 2017-11-29 The site was later recreated in the 1980s and reopened as an outdoor museum.

National River and Recreation Area

The Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area was established by the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...

as part of the

Water Resources Development Act of 1974 The Water Resource Development Act of 1974, is part of enacted on March 7, 1974, enacted by Congress, which also included the Streambank Erosion Control Evaluation and Demonstration Act and the River Basin Monetary Authorization Act. WRDA 1974 WR ...

. According to the text of the act, the purpose of the establishment was for:

conserving and interpreting an area containing unique cultural, historic, geologic, fish and wildlife, archeologic, scenic, and recreational values, preserving as a natural, free-flowing stream the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River, major portions of its Clear Fork and New River stems, and portions of their various tributaries for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations, the preservation of the natural integrity of the scenic gorges and valleys, and the development of the area’s potential for healthful outdoor recreation.

The legislation granted authority for land acquisition to the Army Corps of Engineers, and for managing the area to the

United States Secretary of the Interior The United States secretary of the interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior. The secretary and the Department of the Interior are responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land along with natura ...

once established. Congress authorized final transfer of the land to the National Park Service in 1990, and the official dedication of the park occurred on August 25, 1991.

Ecology

The Big South Fork and its watershed is home to a large variety of plant and animal species, and has likely been continuously vegetated since before the last glacial period, ending approximately 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Habitats range from

floodplains A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudie, ...

, to

coves A cove is a small bay or coastal inlet. They usually have narrow, restricted entrances, are often circular or oval, and are often situated within a larger bay. Small, narrow, sheltered bays, inlets, creeks, or recesses in a coast are often cons ...

, as well as

ravines A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. Ravines may also be called a cleuch, dell, g ...

, moist slopes, and sandstone

caprock Caprock or cap rock is a hard, resistant, and impermeable layer of rock that overlies and protects a reservoir of softer organic material, similar to the crust on a pie where the crust (caprock) prevents leakage of the soft filling (softer materia ...

. The area is home to between 68 and 81 species of fish, 23 species of

mussels Mussel () is the common name used for members of several families of bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, whic ...

, and up to 215 individual

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

of macro

invertebrates Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordate subphylum ...

Animal life

Fish species include ''

Ictalurus punctatus The channel catfish (''Ictalurus punctatus''), known informally as the "channel cat", is a species of catfish native to North America. They are North America's most abundant catfish species, and the official state fish of Kansas, Missouri, Nebras ...

'' (channel catfish), '' Stizostedion vitreum'' (walleye), '' Esox masquinongy'' (muskellunge), ''

Morone chrysops The white bass, silver bass, or sand bass (''Morone chrysops'') is a freshwater fish of the temperate bass family Moronidae. commonly around 12–15 inches long. The species' main color is silver-white to pale green. Its back is dark, with white ...

'' (white bass), ''

Ambloplites rupestris The rock bass (''Ambloplites rupestris''), also known as the rock perch, goggle-eye, red eye, and black perch, is a freshwater fish native to east-central North America. This red-eyed fish is a species of freshwater fish in the sunfish family (Ce ...

'' (rock bass), and ''

Lepomis megalotis ''Lepomis'' or true sunfish is a genus of North American freshwater fish from the family Centrarchidae in the order Centrarchiformes. The generic name ''Lepomis'' derives from the Greek ("scale") and ("cover", "plug", " operculum"). The genus' ...

'' (longear sunfish). The availability of “seeds, berries, nuts, buds, flowers, fleshy roots and twigs” encourages the presence of species such as the ''

Bonasa umbellus The ruffed grouse (''Bonasa umbellus'') is a medium-sized grouse occurring in forests from the Appalachian Mountains across Canada to Alaska. It is the most widely distributed game bird in North America. It is non-migratory. It is the only spec ...

'' (ruffed grouse), ''

Meleagris gallopavo The wild turkey (''Meleagris gallopavo'') is an upland game bird native to North America, one of two extant species of turkey and the heaviest member of the order Galliformes. It is the ancestor to the domestic turkey (''M. g. domesticus''), w ...

'' (turkey), '' Sciurus carolinensis'' (eastern gray squirrel). Food available in canopy vegetation supports '' Vireo olivaceus'' (red-eyed vireo), '' Wilsonia citrina'' (hooded warbler), '' Setophaga ruticilla'' (American redstart), ''

Sorex fumeus The smoky shrew (''Sorex fumeus'') is a medium-sized North American shrew found in eastern Canada and the northeastern United States and extends further south along the Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appal ...

'' (smoky shrew), ''

Scalopus aquaticus The eastern mole or common mole (''Scalopus aquaticus'') is a medium-sized North American mole. It is the only species in the genus ''Scalopus''. It is found in forested and open areas with moist sandy soils in northern Mexico, the eastern Un ...

'' (eastern mole), ''

Neotoma floridana The eastern woodrat (''Neotoma floridana''), also known as the Florida woodrat or bush rat, is a pack rat native to the central and Eastern United States. It constructs large dens that may serve as nests for many generations and stores food in o ...

'' (eastern woodrat), and ''

Peromyscus leucopus The white-footed mouse (''Peromyscus leucopus'') is a rodent native to North America from southern Canada to the southwestern United States and Mexico. It is a species of the genus ''Peromyscus'', a closely related group of New World mice often ...

'' (white-footed mouse). These species in turn provide food for

predatory birds Birds of prey or predatory birds, also known as (although not the same as) raptors, are hypercarnivorous bird species that actively hunt and feed on other vertebrates (mainly mammals, reptiles and smaller birds). In addition to speed and streng ...

such as ''

Strix varia The barred owl (''Strix varia''), also known as the northern barred owl, striped owl or, more informally, hoot owl or eight-hooter owl, is a North American large species of owl. A member of the true owl family, Strigidae, they belong to the genus ...

'' (barred owl) and '' Buteo lineatus'' (red-shouldered hawk). During the 1990s, 14 adult female and 16

black bear Black bear or Blackbear may refer to: Animals * American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), a North American bear species * Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), an Asian bear species Music * Black Bear (band), a Canadian First Nations group ...

cubs were reintroduced to the river basin, relocated from the

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States in the southeastern United States, southeast, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline o ...

. As of 2013, genetic analysis estimated the bear population in the area to be at 245.

Plant life

The plant life along the river and in the surrounding basin can be divided into plateau and ravine communities consisting of mixed

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

forests along with areas of mixed

mesophytic Mesophytes are terrestrial plants which are adapted to neither particularly dry nor particularly wet environments. An example of a mesophytic habitat would be a rural temperate meadow, which might contain goldenrod, clover, oxeye daisy, and '' Ros ...

vegetation. Forests of

sugar maple ''Acer saccharum'', the sugar maple, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It is native to the hardwood forests of eastern Canada and the eastern United States. Sugar maple is best known for being the ...

, along with

beech Beech (genus ''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to subtropical (accessory forest element) and temperate (as dominant element of Mesophyte, mesophytic forests) Eurasia and North America. There are 14 accepted ...

and

yellow birch ''Betula alleghaniensis'', the yellow birch, golden birch, or swamp birch, is a large tree and an important lumber species of birch native to northeastern North America. Its vernacular names refer to the golden color of the tree's bark. In the p ...

are found in low moist slopes, and ''

Tsuga canadensis ''Tsuga canadensis'', also known as eastern hemlock, eastern hemlock-spruce, or Canadian hemlock, and in the French-speaking regions of Canada as ''pruche du Canada'', is a Pinophyta, coniferous tree native plant, native to eastern North America. ...

'' (Canadian hemlock) along with undergrowth of ''

Rhododendron maximum ''Rhododendron maximum'' is a species of ''Rhododendron'' native to the Appalachians of eastern North America, from Alabama north to coastal Nova Scotia. Its common names include great laurel, great rhododendron, rosebay rhododendron, American rh ...

'' grow in coves along streams. Communities of various species of

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

may also be found. As the result of logging in the mid 20th century, most of the areas consists of

2nd A second is the base unit of time in the International System of Units (SI). Second, Seconds, The Second, or (The) 2nd may also refer to: Mathematics * 2 (number), as an ordinal (also written as ''2nd'' or ''2d'') * Minute and second of arc, ...

or 3rd growth forest.

Whitewater

Whitewater rafting Rafting and whitewater rafting are recreational outdoor activities which use an inflatable raft to navigate a river or other body of water. This is often done on whitewater or different degrees of rough water. Dealing with risk is often a ...

and

kayaking Kayaking is the use of a kayak for moving over water. It is distinguished from canoeing by the sitting position of the paddler and the number of blades on the paddle. A kayak is a low-to-the-water, canoe-like boat in which the paddler sits fac ...

occur on the Big South Fork mostly in the Spring season. Available runs range in distance from to , and vary in difficulty between classes I and IV according to the international scale of river difficulty. The most popular runs are those upstream from Leatherwood Ford, ranging from to in distance and between class I and IV in difficulty depending on put-in. The minimum water flow recommended by the National Park Service for rafting is 800 cfs, with a maximum flow of 10,000 cfs for safe rafting. Moving downstream from the confluence to

, named

rapids Rapids are sections of a river where the river bed has a relatively steep stream gradient, gradient, causing an increase in water velocity and turbulence. Flow, gradient, constriction, and obstacles are four factors that are needed for a rapid t ...

according to the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

are: # Double Falls # Washing Machine # The Ell # Rion's Eddy # Jake's Hold # O&W Rapid # Angel Falls # Big Shoals # Devil's Jump

Notes

References

External links

* {{authority control Rivers of Kentucky Rivers of Tennessee Rivers of Scott County, Tennessee Rivers of McCreary County, Kentucky Rivers of Pulaski County, Kentucky Daniel Boone National Forest Tributaries of the Cumberland River