The Emory River is a river draining a portion 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 ...
's
Cumberland Plateau. It flows for just over from its source near
Frozen Head State Park to its mouth along the
Clinch River at
Kingston, Tennessee
Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Roane County, Tennessee, United States. This city is thirty-six miles southwest of Knoxville, Tennessee, Knoxville. It had a population of 5,934 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 United States ce ...
.
Hydrography
The Emory River rises on the slopes of Fork Mountain and descends through a valley along the northern base of Bird Mountain, a prominent ridge in
Frozen Head State Park in
Morgan County. The surrounding area has been the subject of extensive
strip mining for
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal i ...
which has resulted in some stream
pollution
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause harm. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the component ...
. The stream initially flows basically westward and is crossed by
U.S. Highway 27. Turning more southwestward, it is paralleled for a time by a line of the
Norfolk Southern Railway. It meets the
Obed River in the southeast corner of the expansive
Catoosa Wildlife Management Area, a large game-management area operated by the
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.
Still paralleled by the railroad, the stream crosses into
Roane County near
Harriman. Backwaters of the
Watts Bar Lake impoundment of 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 ...
cause the water below Harriman to be somewhat slack. The
Little Emory River is also impounded somewhat above its mouth into the Emory below Harriman.
The mouth of the Emory is into the
Clinch River at the
Tennessee Valley Authority's
Kingston Power Plant, a coal-fired electric generation station initially developed during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, largely to power the
uranium
Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...
enrichment plants used to make the world's first
atomic bomb at nearby
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1943, the laboratory is sponsored by the United Sta ...
. The 2008
Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill heavily polluted the Emory River and surrounding area.
Etymology
According to a 1910 article in the ''Rockwood Times'' by Captain William E. McElwee, the river was named after "William Emery", an early traveler who drowned while swimming the river with his "accoutrements" on. Early deed books sometimes refer to this as "William Emeries River". The
Indian name for the Emory River was "Babahatchie", which means "babbling waters."
[Roberts, Snyder E. (1981) ''Roots of Roane County, Tennessee - 1792 -'']
See also
*
List of Tennessee rivers
References
External links
Emory River Watershed Association
{{authority control
Rivers of Tennessee
Rivers of Morgan County, Tennessee
Rivers of Roane County, Tennessee
Wild and Scenic Rivers of the United States