Monroe County is a county located on the eastern border of the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 46,250. Its county seat is Madisonville, and its largest city is Sweetwater.
Blount County is a county located in the East Tennessee Grand Division of the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, its population was 135,280. The county seat is Maryville, which is also the county's largest city. Blount County is included in the Knoxville metropolitan area.
Graham County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 8,030, making it the third-least populous county in North Carolina. Its county seat is Robbinsville.
Lake Santeetlah is a town in Graham County, North Carolina, United States, 6 miles (10 km) northwest of Robbinsville on a peninsula surrounded by Lake Santeetlah—which in turn is largely surrounded by Nantahala National Forest. The town has more than two hundred residences, many of them second homes owned by permanent residents of Florida and Georgia. The town was organized in 1989 as "Santeetlah"; in 1999, it changed its name to "Lake Santeetlah". The full-time population was 67 at the 2000 census and dropped to 45 in 2010.
The Little Tennessee River is a 135-mile (217 km) tributary of the Tennessee River that flows through the Blue Ridge Mountains from Georgia, into North Carolina, and then into Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. It drains portions of three national forests— Chattahoochee, Nantahala, and Cherokee— and provides the southwestern boundary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The Unicoi Mountains are a mountain range rising along the border between Tennessee and North Carolina in the southeastern United States. They are part of the Blue Ridge Mountain Province of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The Unicois are located immediately south of the Great Smoky Mountains and immediately west of the Cheoah Mountains. Most of the range is protected as a national forest, namely the Cherokee National Forest on the Tennessee side and the Nantahala National Forest on the North Carolina side— although some parts have been designated as wilderness areas and are thus more strictly regulated.
Fontana Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Little Tennessee River in Swain and Graham counties, North Carolina, United States. The dam is operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the early 1940s to satisfy the skyrocketing electricity demands in the Tennessee Valley to support the aluminum industry at the height of World War II; it also provided electricity to a formerly rural area.
The Cherohala Skyway is a 43-mile (69 km) National Scenic Byway and National Forest Scenic Byway that connects Tellico Plains, Tennessee, to Robbinsville, North Carolina, in the southeastern United States. Its name is a portmanteau of Cherokee and Nantahala, the two national forests through which it passes. Along with multiple vistas and overlooks, the skyway provides easy vehicular access to various protected and recreational areas of the Unicoi Mountains, including the Citico Creek Wilderness, the Bald River Gorge Wilderness, and the remote interior of the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest.
The Nantahala National Forest is the largest of the four national forests in North Carolina, lying in the mountains and valleys of western North Carolina. The Nantahala is the second wettest region in the country, after the Pacific Northwest. Due to its environmental importance and historical ties with the Cherokee, the forest was officially established on January 29, 1920, by President Woodrow Wilson. The word "Nantahala" is a Cherokee derived, meaning "Land of the Noonday Sun." In some spots, the sun reaches the floors of the deep gorges of the forest only when it is high overhead at midday. This was part of the homeland of the historic Cherokee and their indigenous ancestors, who have occupied the region for thousands of years.
North Carolina Highway 143 (NC 143) is a primary state highway in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It runs from the Tennessee state line to NC 28, near the community of Stecoah. It is best known for its 18-mile (29 km) section of the Cherohala Skyway, shared with Tennessee State Route 165.
Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest is an approximately 3,800-acre tract of publicly owned virgin forest in Graham County, North Carolina, named in memory of poet Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918), best known for his poem "Trees". One of the largest contiguous tracts of old growth forest in the Eastern United States, the area is administered by the U. S. Forest Service. The memorial forest is a popular family hiking destination and features an easy two-mile, figure-eight trail that includes a memorial plaque at the juncture of the two loops. In 1975 the memorial forest was joined with a much larger tract of the Nantahala National Forest to become part of the Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness.
Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness, created in 1975, covers 17,394 acres (70 km2) in the Nantahala National Forest in western North Carolina and the Cherokee National Forest in eastern Tennessee, in the watersheds of the Slickrock and Little Santeetlah Creeks. It is named after Joyce Kilmer, author of "Trees." The Little Santeetlah and Slickrock watersheds contain 5,926 acres (23.98 km2) of old growth forest, one of the largest tracts in the United States east of the Mississippi River.
Calderwood Dam is a hydroelectric dam located along the Little Tennessee River in Blount and Monroe counties, in the U. S. state of Tennessee. Completed in 1930, the dam is owned and maintained by Tapoco, a subsidiary of the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa), although the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) controls the dam's reservoir levels from Fontana Dam further upstream. Calderwood Dam is named for Alcoa engineer Isaac Glidden Calderwood (1871–1941), who supervised much of the company's early Little Tennessee River operations.
The Cheoah Dam is a hydroelectric complex located in Graham and Swain counties, North Carolina, on the Little Tennessee River between river miles 51 and 52. The Cheoah Development consists of a dam and powerhouse, the first of several constructed by the Tallassee Power Company, a subsidiary of Aluminum Company of America, in order to generate electricity to smelt aluminum in Alcoa, Tennessee.
The Cheoah River is a tributary of the Little Tennessee River in North Carolina in the United States.
Alcoa Power Generating, Inc. is a subsidiary of Alcoa Inc., headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Its three divisions were independent subsidiaries before being consolidated into Alcoa Power Generating, Inc. (APGI). These three projects have produced hydroelectric power and manage impoundments which also provide flood control; recreation, residential and business opportunities; and wildlife habitat.
Calderwood was a community once located along the Little Tennessee River in Blount County, Tennessee, United States. Established in 1912 as a base for the Aluminum Company of America's Little Tennessee Valley hydroelectric development operations, the community continued to house construction personnel and dam maintenance personnel for nearby Calderwood Dam until the 1960s. Although the community's houses were razed after its abandonment, three buildings located in the community— the Calderwood Dam service building, the Calderwood School, and a Quonset hut used as a theater— were included in a supplementary listing for Calderwood Dam on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
Hooper Bald is a grassy bald mountain in the Unicoi Mountain Range located in the Cheoah Ranger District of Nantahala National Forest in Graham County, North Carolina, United States. The summit is 5,429 ft/1,655 m.
