Conasauga Creek is a 42.8 miles (68.9 km) tributary
streamA stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, "crick", gill , kill, lick, rill, river, syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, run or...
of the
Hiwassee RiverThe Hiwassee River has its headwaters on the north slope of Rocky Mountain in Towns County in northern Georgia and flows northward into North Carolina before turning westward into Tennessee, flowing into the Tennessee River a few miles west of State Route 58 in Meigs County, Tennessee...
, located in southeast
TennesseeTennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It is not to be confused with the nearby
Conasauga RiverThe Conasauga River is a river that runs through southeast Tennessee and northwest Georgia. The Conasauga River is long and is home to 90 species of fish and 25 species of freshwater mussels...
.
Course
Conasauga Creek flows from its source in the
Unicoi RangeThe 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...
(part of the
Appalachian MountainsThe Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
) in
Monroe County. It flows by the town of Coker Creek and, following a generally northeast route, passes between Mocking Crow Mountain and Pine Mountain to emerge into the valley of Rural Vale. From there it curves around the northern end of Starr Mountain, turning east and then southeast. Starr Mountain marks the boundary between the higher mountains of the southern
Blue Ridge MountainsThe Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. This province consists of northern and southern physiographic regions, which divide near the Roanoke River gap. The mountain range is located in the eastern United States, starting at its southern-most...
and the lower ridges of the
Ridge-and-valley AppalachiansThe Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, also called the Ridge and Valley Province or the Valley and Ridge Appalachians, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division and are also a belt within the Appalachian Mountains extending from southeastern New York through northwestern New...
.
After emerging from the higher mountains, Conasauga Creek passes by the town of
EtowahEtowah is a city in McMinn County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 3,663 at the 2000 census.-History:Etowah was founded in 1906, primarily as a location for a depot on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad line as part of a more direct route between Atlanta, Georgia and Cincinnati, Ohio...
in
Mcminn County, before discharging into the Hiwassee River in
Polk County.
History
The valley of Conasauga Creek was the route of the Warrior Path that connected the
CherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
towns of
Great HiwasseeGreat Hiwassee was an important Overhill Cherokee town from the late 17th through the early 19th centuries. It was located on the Hiwassee River in present-day Polk County, Tennessee, on the north bank of the river where modern U.S. Route 411 crosses the river...
on the Hiwassee River to
Great TellicoGreat Tellico was a Cherokee town at the site of present-day Tellico Plains, Tennessee, where the Tellico River emerges from the Appalachian Mountains. Great Tellico was one of the largest Cherokee towns in the region, and had a sister town nearby named Chatuga. Its name in Cherokee is more...
on the
Tellico RiverThe Tellico River rises in the westernmost mountains of North Carolina, but it flows mainly through Monroe County, Tennessee. It is a major tributary of the Little Tennessee River and the namesake of Tellico Reservoir, a reservoir created by Tellico Dam, which impounds the lower reaches of the...
.