Levisa Fork

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Levisa Fork
Levisa Fork in Paintsville.jpg
The Levisa Fork in Paintsville
Bigsandyrivermap.png
Map of the Big Sandy River watershed, with its Levisa Fork (left) and Tug Fork (right) tributaries shown
Location
Country United States
State Kentucky, Virginia
Counties Buchanan VA, Pike KY, Floyd KY, Johnson KY, Lawrence KY
Physical characteristics
SourceGap of Sandy
  location Buchanan County, VA
  coordinates 37°09′06″N81°54′04″W / 37.15167°N 81.90111°W / 37.15167; -81.90111
  elevation2,657 ft (810 m) [1]
Mouth Big Sandy River [2]
  location
Louisa, KY
  coordinates
38°07′05″N82°36′06″W / 38.11806°N 82.60167°W / 38.11806; -82.60167 Coordinates: 38°07′05″N82°36′06″W / 38.11806°N 82.60167°W / 38.11806; -82.60167
  elevation
545 ft (166 m)
Length164 mi (264 km) [3]
Discharge 
  location Pikeville, KY [4]
  average1,504 cu ft/s (42.6 m3/s) [4]
  minimum66 cu ft/s (1.9 m3/s)
  maximum85,500 cu ft/s (2,420 m3/s)

The Levisa Fork (also known as the Levisa Fork River or the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River) is a tributary of the Big Sandy River, approximately 164 miles (264 km) long, [3] in southwestern Virginia and eastern Kentucky in the United States.

Contents

Overview

The Levisa Fork in Pikeville Levisa Fork River.jpg
The Levisa Fork in Pikeville

It rises in the Appalachian Mountains of southwestern Virginia, in eastern Buchanan County, near Grundy. It flows west into Pike County, Kentucky, where it is impounded to form Fishtrap Lake reservoir. After collecting the Russell Fork, it flows northwest through Pikeville and Prestonsburg. The natural course of the river formed a loop surrounding downtown Pikeville, but a massive earthmoving project completed in 1987 rerouted the river to bypass the city. At Paintsville it turns to the north-northeast, flowing through Johnson and Lawrence counties. It joins the Tug Fork from the southwest at Louisa on the West Virginia state line to form the Big Sandy.

The Levisa Fork was historically an important river for log driving. [5] The river is partly navigable for commercial purposes through a series of locks. In the early 1900s the river was navigable as far as Pikeville.

Variant names, according to the USGS, include Louisa River, Louisa Fork, Lavisa Fork, and West Fork, in addition to Levisa Fork River and Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River. The official name according to the USGS is Levisa Fork. [2] According to Robert F. Collins of the United States Forest Service, 18th-century explorer Dr. Thomas Walker had named the nearby Kentucky River the Louisa River, after Princess Louisa, sister of Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (Walker had just named the Cumberland River a month or two earlier). According to George R. Stewart, frontiersmen "forgot" who it was named for and it changed over time to Levisa. An alternate story is that one of Ephraim Vause' daughters, Levicee, was carried away by the Shawnee after the attack on Fort Vause in 1756. She had placed her name on the trunks of beech and sycamore trees as she had been carried along, thus giving her name to Levisa Fork. [6]

On February 28, 1958, a Floyd County school bus tumbled into the Levisa Fork after a collision with a wrecker truck, leading to one of the worst bus disasters in American history.

See also

Related Research Articles

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Russell Fork

The Russell Fork is a 51.9-mile-long (83.5 km) tributary of the Levisa Fork in southwestern Virginia and southeastern Kentucky in the United States. Known for its whitewater, it rises in the Appalachian Mountains of southwest Virginia, in southern Buchanan County at the base of Big A Mountain, and flows northwest into Dickenson County. The Russell Fork continues to flow through the town of Haysi, Virginia, the Breaks Interstate Park, and the town of Elkhorn City, Kentucky, in Pike County, where it flows into the Levisa Fork which, together with the Tug Fork, form the Big Sandy River.

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Garden Village is an unincorporated community in Pike County, Kentucky. It is located on the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River, below the Peyton Branch and 4 miles (6.4 km) southeast of Pikeville.

The Poor Fork is a 45-mile (72 km) tributary of the Cumberland River in Letcher and Harlan Counties, southeast Kentucky, in the United States. The river flows from its source at Flat Gap in the Appalachian Mountains, on the Kentucky–Virginia border, generally southwest to its confluence about a mile (1.6 km) north of Harlan.

References

  1. "Levisa Fork Source". Elevation Query. U.S. Geological Survey. Archived from the original on 2011-07-22. Retrieved 2009-07-18.
  2. 1 2 "Levisa Fork". Geographic Names Information System . United States Geological Survey. 1979-09-20. Retrieved 2009-07-18.
  3. 1 2 U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map Archived 2012-03-29 at the Wayback Machine , accessed June 13, 2011
  4. 1 2 United States Geological Survey; USGS 03209500 LEVISA FORK AT PIKEVILLE, KY; retrieved July 18, 2009.
  5. Federal Writers' Project (1996). The WPA Guide to Kentucky. University Press of Kentucky. p. 241. ISBN   0813108659 . Retrieved 24 November 2013.
  6. Johnson, Patricia Givens. William Preston and the Allegheny Patriots. [Place of publication not identified]: B.D. Smith, 1976. Page 51.