Ten thousand years under the Roan

Long before the county line

The Watauga valley was Cherokee hunting ground and cultivated river bottom for generations before Anglo settlement. James Robertson and others reached the valley in 1769. The crossing at Sycamore Shoals became the hinge.

May 1772 — Watauga Association

Settlers at Sycamore Shoals organized the Watauga Association, widely described as the first constitutional government by American-born colonists west of the Appalachians. Carter County later took its name from Landon Carter; Elizabethton, laid out in 1799, from Elizabeth Maclin Carter.

1775 — Treaty of Sycamore Shoals

Richard Henderson’s Transylvania Purchase with Cherokee leaders including Attakullakulla and Oconostota. The legality was argued from the day it was signed. It is the reason the shoals sit in every regional history.

July 1776 — Fort Watauga

Cherokee attack on the Watauga fort, 21 July 1776. The reconstructed fort at Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park is the public place to stand in that story.

September–October 1780 — Overmountain Men

Muster at Sycamore Shoals, then the march to Kings Mountain, 7 October 1780. The Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail still marks the line.

1882 — Elizabethton Covered Bridge

Howe-truss covered bridge over the Doe, connecting 3rd Street and Hattie Avenue. County court funded it after deciding a Watauga crossing at town was impractical. Contractor Dr. E. E. Hunter; engineer Col. Thomas Matson of the ET&WNC. About 134 feet, earth and limestone abutments. Hunter’s joke was the “five dollar bridge” — his profit. It survived the 1901 flood that took the other town bridges. Pedestrians and bikes still cross; cars do not.

1870s–1910s — Cloudland Hotel

Gilded Age hotel on the Roan high ridge, famous for sitting on the Tennessee–North Carolina line. The building is gone. The ridge and the gardens remain. See Roan.

Wilbur Dam and the tailwater

TVA’s Wilbur Dam, just below Watauga Dam, is the machine that makes the modern river. Generation writes the wade, the drift, and the whitewater. The Quality Zone special regs date to 1989 (original lower bound at Hwy 400; moved to the CSX bridge in 2003).