Stones River
Encyclopedia
The Stones River is a major stream of the eastern portion of Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee 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...

's Nashville Basin
Nashville Basin
The Nashville Basin, also known as the Central Basin, is a term often used to describe the area surrounding Nashville, Tennessee. The Central Basin was caused by an uplifting known as the Nashville Dome. The Nashville Dome is evidenced by the underlying rock strata that all dip downwards away from...

 region.

Geography and hydrography

The Stones River is composed of three major forks: the West, Middle, and East forks. The West Fork, 39.1 miles (62.9 km) long, rises in southernmost Rutherford County
Rutherford County, Tennessee
Rutherford County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2010 census, it is the state's fifth-largest county by population with 262,604 people, an increase of 44.3 percent over the 2000 population of 182,023. Its county seat is Murfreesboro, which is also the geographic...

 near the Bedford County line. The upstream portion of its course runs roughly parallel to U.S. Highway 231. The Middle Fork, 19.8 miles (31.9 km) long, rises in an area of low hills, or knobs, also near the line with Bedford County, near Hoovers Gap, an important troop movement route during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. It flows roughly parallel to, but west of, Interstate 24
Interstate 24
Interstate 24 is an Interstate Highway in the Midwestern and Southeastern United States. It runs diagonally from Interstate 57 to Chattanooga, Tennessee, at Interstate 75....

 and U.S. Highway 41, and is met by the West Fork near State Route 99. The East Fork is the longest, at 54 miles (86.9 km); it rises in Cannon County on Short Mountain, an outlier of the Cumberland Plateau
Cumberland Plateau
The Cumberland Plateau is the southern part of the Appalachian Plateau. It includes much of eastern Kentucky and western West Virginia, part of Tennessee, and a small portion of northern Alabama and northwest Georgia . The terms "Allegheny Plateau" and the "Cumberland Plateau" both refer to the...

, and flows through Woodbury
Woodbury, Tennessee
Woodbury is a town in Cannon County, Tennessee, United States. Woodbury is part of the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area and is located apporoximately 50 miles southeast of downtown Nashville. The population was 2,428 at the 2000 census...

, the county seat. This stream is roughly paralleled by U.S. Route 70S
U.S. Route 70S
U.S. Route 70s is an alternate to U.S. Route 70 between the western part of Nashville, TN and Sparta, Tennessee. It runs concurrent with US 70 for several blocks in downtown Nashville...

.

The West Fork runs just west of downtown Murfreesboro
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Murfreesboro is a city in and the county seat of Rutherford County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 108,755 according to the United States Census Bureau's 2010 U.S. Census, up from 68,816 residents certified during the 2000 census. The center of population of Tennessee is located in...

. Just northwest of Murfreesboro along the West Fork is the Stones River National Battlefield
Stones River National Battlefield
Stones River National Battlefield, a park along the Stones River in Rutherford County, Tennessee, three miles northwest of Murfreesboro and twenty-eight miles southeast of...

, site of the Battle of Stones River
Battle of Stones River
The Battle of Stones River or Second Battle of Murfreesboro , was fought from December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863, in Middle Tennessee, as the culmination of the Stones River Campaign in the Western Theater of the American Civil War...

, a major Civil War battle that was fought from December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863. The East Fork runs well to the north of Murfreesboro, adjacent to the grounds of the Alvin C. York Veterans Affairs hospital
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....

, and is crossed by U.S. Highway 231 near the community of Walterhill
Walterhill, Tennessee
Walterhill, also known as Walter Hill, is a census-designated place in Rutherford County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 1,523 at the 2000 census....

, site of a former hydroelectric dam
Dam
A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...

 used for a power supply for the surrounding area prior to the advent of the Tennessee Valley Authority
Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected...

. Near this site is a gigantic landfill
Landfill
A landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...

 operated by Browning-Ferris Industries
Browning-Ferris Industries
Browning-Ferris Industries was a North American waste management company that was disbanded in 1999. Its name is a licensed trademark of Allied Waste Industries. Its headquarters were located in the Eldridge Place 1 and 2 complex in the Energy Corridor area of Houston, Texas.BFI was founded in...

.

Reservoir

The confluence of the two major forks occurs in northeastern Rutherford County near Smyrna
Smyrna, Tennessee
Smyrna is a town in Rutherford County, Tennessee, United States. Smyrna's population was 25,569 people at the 2000 census. The Census estimate of the 2009 population is 39,142.-Geography:Smyrna is located at ....

. At the confluence, both are already somewhat slack because of the impoundment of J. Percy Priest Dam
J. Percy Priest Dam
J. Percy Priest Dam is a dam in north central Tennessee at mile 6.8 of the Stones River, a tributary of the Cumberland. It is located about ten miles east of downtown Nashville. The reservoir behind the dam is Percy Priest Lake....

, a United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 Corps of Engineers
United States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...

 development constructed during the 1960s and named for a former Nashville Congressman
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

. The impoundment of the reservoir led to major change in residential growth patterns in Nashville during the late 1960s and 1970s because people desired to live near the lake, which is highly developed with boat ramps, marinas, parks and other recreational areas, campgrounds, and even an artificial beach area. The dam has a hydroelectric turbine and was once the subject of a poorly-planned plot to blow it up and use the resultant flooding of downtown Nashville to cover a crime spree; the conspirators succeeded in doing nothing more than blowing the doors off of an access area near the dam's base and were subsequently sentenced to substantial prison terms.

The dam is visible from the bridge just below it on Interstate 40
Interstate 40
Interstate 40 is the third-longest major east–west Interstate Highway in the United States, after I-90 and I-80. Its western end is at Interstate 15 in Barstow, California; its eastern end is at a concurrency of U.S. Route 117 and North Carolina Highway 132 in Wilmington, North Carolina...

; just below the dam is a very desirable fishing area under certain discharge conditions, but in recent years access has at times been limited because of security concerns. Also just below the dam is the trail-head of the Stones River Greenway, an important part of the Nashville Greenways Project.

Tailwaters

Between Percy Priest Dam and the mouth of the Stones River, it flows through Clover Bottom, a large flood plain and site of a former plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...

 whose mansion house, after many years of disuse, neglect, and vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...

, is now the headquarters for the Tennessee Historical Commission. "Clover Bottom" was once the name of a nearby custodial school for mentally disabled children and adults. The immediate area is also the site of a state mental hospital and the Tennessee School for the Blind. Clover Bottom also is the separation of the Nashville neighborhoods of Donelson and Hermitage.

Near the mouth of the Stones River into the Cumberland
Cumberland River
The Cumberland River is a waterway in the Southern United States. It is long. It starts in Harlan County in far southeastern Kentucky between Pine and Cumberland mountains, flows through southern Kentucky, crosses into northern Tennessee, and then curves back up into western Kentucky before...

, below the bridge on U.S. Highway 70
U.S. Route 70
U.S. Route 70 is an east–west United States highway that runs for 2,385 miles from eastern North Carolina to east-central Arizona. As can be derived from its number, it is a major east–west highway of the Southern and Southwestern United States...

, is a private golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....

club. The Stones River is now thought of primarily in terms of its major impoundment, Percy Priest Lake, and is very important to the Nashville area. The flood control provided by the dam has been very important to the reduction of flooding downstream in the downtown Nashville area.
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