CUMBERLAND RIVER

Length: 1100 kilometres (680 miles)

Tributaries include: Laurel, Rockcastle, South Fork Cumberland, Obey, Stones, Harpeth, Little, and Red rivers.

The Cumberland River was named for the Duke of Cumberland in 1750 by Dr Thomas Walker a British surveyor. The headwaters (the Clover and Poor forks) lie in the Cumberland plateau, part of the Appalachian Mountains.

The river flows in a great arc, flowing 800 kilometres (500 miles) southwestward, entering Tennessee, and flowing to Nashville, then turning northwest to reenter Kentucky and complete a further 800 kilometres (500 miles) before joining the Ohio.

The highest waterfall in Kentucky is the Cumberland Falls, which has a fall of 21 m (63 feet) near Corbin.

The lower course of the Cumberland and Tennessee run parallel and are so close that they can be connected by a canal only 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles) long.

The development of the Cumberland is part of the responsibility of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The Cumberland is dammed in a number of places, both to prevent flooding and to provide hydro-electric power. Some water is also used for irrigation. About half way along its course lies the longest reservoir, Lake Cumberland (160 kilometres (100 miles) long). The Cumberland is also dammed in its lower reaches, producing Lake Barkley (whose surface area (2500 hectares (62,000 acres)) is about a fifth larger than Lake Cumberland.

The Cumberland closely parallels the Tennessee River in its lower course, and the two are connected by a canal near the mouth of the Cumberland.

The land between the Cumberland and the Tennessee - called Land Between The Lakes - is a national monument and wildlife refuge.

During the Civil War the Cumberland was an important routeway and was protected by the Confederacy through the construction of Fort Donelson on the Cumberland just south of the western Kentucky-Tennessee border. The capture of this fort by General Ulysses S. Grant in 1862 was a major step toward giving the north a foothold in the south.

Note:
The Cumberland Gap is an ancient water gap to the south of the present Cumberland River, and was cut by a former river in the eastern escarpment of the Cumberland Mountains where Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, meet. It is now marked by the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, which commemorates the historical importance of the gap as an early major route westward through the Appalachian Mountains.

The gap (which no longer contains a river) was discovered in 1750 by Dr. Thomas Walker, but made famous by Daniel Boone who, in 1755, followed an old Indian Trail to forge a route westward. This route became known as the Wilderness Road and it was one of the main ways in which the colonization of Kentucky and Tennessee took place. The gap has cliffs over 150 m (500 feet) high.

From 1775 to 1810 between 200,000 and 300,000 people crossed the Gap into Kentucky.