Little Tennessee River

Bussell Island, formerly Lenoir Island, is an island located at the mouth of the Little Tennessee River, at its confluence with the Tennessee River in Loudon County, near the U.S. city of Lenoir City, Tennessee. The island was inhabited by various Native American cultures for thousands of years before the arrival of early European explorers. The Tellico Dam and a recreational area occupy part of the island. Part of the island was added in 1978 to the National Register of Historic Places for its archaeological potential.Native American habitation of Bussell Island dates to the Late Archaic period (c. 3000–1000 BC). The island is believed to have been the location of the capital of Coste—a Mississippian-period chiefdom visited by Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in 1540—and was later part of the domain of the Overhill Cherokee and the regional homelands of the Cherokee people. In 1887 and 1919, archaeologists conducted extensive excavations at Bussell Island and identified its archaeological importance. The island was drastically modified in the 1970s when the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) built Tellico Dam.

Tellico Dam is a concrete gravity and earthen embankment dam on the Little Tennessee River that was built by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in Loudon County, Tennessee. Planning for a dam structure on the Little Tennessee was reported as early as 1936 but was deferred for development until 1942. Completed in 1979, the dam created the Tellico Reservoir and is the last dam to be built by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Unlike the agency's previous dams built for hydroelectric power and flood control, the Tellico Dam was primarily constructed as an economic development and tourism initiative through the planned city concept of Timberlake, Tennessee. The development project aimed to support a population of 42,000 in a rural region in poor economic conditions. Referred to as a pork barrel, the Tellico Dam is the subject of several controversies regarding the need of its construction and the impacts the structure had on the surrounding environment. Inundation of the Little Tennessee required the acquisition of thousands of acres, predominantly multi-generational farmland and historic sites such as the Fort Loudoun settlement and several Cherokee tribal villages including Tanasi, the origin of Tennessee's name. Most of the acreage around the final lakeshore, originally seized through eminent domain, was sold to private developers to create retirement-oriented golf resort communities such as Tellico Village and Rarity Bay. The Tellico Dam project was also controversial because of the risk it was believed to pose to the endangered snail darter fish species. Environmentalist groups took the TVA to court as a means to halt the project and protect the snail darter. The court action delayed the final completion of the dam for over two years. In the 1978 case Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill heard by the Supreme Court of the United States, the court ruled in favor of the environmental groups and declared that the completion of Tellico Dam was illegal. However, the dam was completed and filling of the reservoir commenced in November 1979, after the project was exempted from the Endangered Species Act with the passing of the 1980 public works appropriations bill by the United States Congress and President Jimmy Carter.

The Lenoir Cotton Mill was a 19th-century cotton mill located in the U.S. city of Lenoir City, Tennessee. One of the earliest examples of industrial architecture in Tennessee, the mill operated variously from its construction around 1830 until the 1950s. The mill was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in the 1970s. Efforts to restore the mill began in 1980, but before the restoration could be completed, the mill was destroyed by arson in 1991.The Lenoir Cotton Mill was one of several enterprises established by early settler and entrepreneur William Ballard Lenoir (1775–1852). Lenoir moved to the area in 1810 after his father, General William Lenoir, deeded to him the 5,000-acre (2,000 ha) tract of land comprising what is now Lenoir City. The younger Lenoir established the Lenoir Manufacturing Company in 1817, which engaged in multiple agricultural and industrial enterprises throughout the 19th century. The cotton mill was completed in the early 1830s and gradually expanded in subsequent decades. During the U.S. Civil War, Union soldiers destroyed parts of the estate of the Confederate-leaning Lenoir family, but spared the mill due to William Ballard Lenoir's son Benjamin's Mason affiliations. After the Lenoir family sold the mill in the 1890s, it operated variously as a hosiery mill and later as a flour mill.

Fort Loudoun Lake is a reservoir in east Tennessee on the upper Tennessee River, extending about 50 miles (80 km) along the river upstream from Fort Loudoun Dam, at Lenoir City, to Knoxville. Fort Loudoun Reservoir takes its name from the 18th-century British fort built on a nearby site during the French and Indian War. The fort was named for John Campbell, the fourth Earl of Loudoun, commander of British forces in North America at the time. Fort Loudoun is a popular recreation destination, known for bass fishing, boating, and birdwatching. The tailwater area immediately below the dam is an excellent site for viewing a variety of waterbirds, including herons, cormorants, gulls, osprey, and bald eagles. The reservoir is connected by a short canal to Tellico Reservoir on the nearby Little Tennessee River. Water is diverted through the canal to Fort Loudoun for power production. The canal also offers commercial barges access to Tellico without the need for a lock. Barges passing through the Fort Loudoun lock carry about half a million tons of cargo a year.

Fort Loudoun Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Tennessee River in Loudon County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The dam is operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which built the dam in the early 1940s as part of a unified plan to provide electricity and flood control in the Tennessee Valley and create a continuous 652-mile (1,049 km) navigable river channel from Knoxville, Tennessee to Paducah, Kentucky. It is the uppermost of nine TVA dams on the Tennessee River. The dam impounds the 14,600-acre (5,900 ha) Fort Loudoun Lake and its tailwaters are part of Watts Bar Lake. The generating capacity of Fort Loudoun Dam is enhanced by the Tellico Reservoir, from which water is diverted via canal to Fort Loudoun Lake. It and associated infrastructure were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017. Fort Loudoun Dam is named after Fort Loudoun, an 18th-century British colonial fort built during the French and Indian War. The fort— which was located about 10 miles (16 km) south of the dam site— was named for John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun, commander of British forces in North America during this period.

Lenoir City is a suburban city located in Loudon County, Tennessee. The population was 10,117 at the 2020 census. It is included in the Knoxville metropolitan area in East Tennessee, along the Tennessee River southwest of Knoxville.

WBLC (1360 AM) is a Christian radio station licensed to Lenoir City, Tennessee, United States. The station is owned by LifeTalk Radio, Inc.

Hackney Chapel AME Zion Church, also known as Unitia AME Zion Church, is a historic African-American church in rural Loudon County, Tennessee. The adjacent cemetery has about 100 marked graves and up to 200 unmarked graves. The church and cemetery were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.

Loudon County is a county in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is located in the central part of East Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 54,886. Its county seat is Loudon. Loudon County is included in the Knoxville, TN Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Tellico Village is an unincorporated planned community, and census-designated place on the western shore of Tellico Reservoir in Loudon County, Tennessee, United States, about 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Knoxville. Its population was 5,791 as of the 2010 census and and 7,311 at the 2020 census. Tellico Village is a planned retirement community. Governmental functions are managed by the Tellico Village Property Owners Association.

Dixie Lee Junction is an unincorporated community in Loudon County, Tennessee, United States, situated at the intersection of U.S. Route 70 (US 70) and U.S. Route 11 (US 11). The community is named for its historical location at the junction of the eastern leg of the Dixie Highway (which followed US 70 through the region) and the Lee Highway (which followed US 11). From the advent of automobile travel in the late 1920s until the construction of the Interstate Highway System in the late 1950s and 1960s, these two highways were major cross-country routes, and Dixie Lee Junction developed as a "last chance" stopover for tourists traveling southward from Knoxville. While the completion of the interstates drew away most of the cross-country traffic, the US 70/US 11 intersection still serves a strategic role as the western end of the four-lane Kingston Pike, a major commercial thoroughfare in western Knox County.The Dixie Lee Junction community lies adjacent to the town of Farragut, with the Knox-Loudon county line (which runs perpendicular to Kingston Pike) being the technical boundary between the two communities. US 70 approaches Dixie Lee Junction from Kingston to the west, and US 11 approaches from Lenoir City to the southwest. The merged highways then continue eastward for 20 miles (32 km) through Farragut and Knoxville. Two major interstate highways, Interstate 40 (I-40) and I-75, merge just northwest of Dixie Lee Junction. The Dixie Highway was conceived in 1914 to provide a convenient route from the Midwestern United States to Florida. Its eastern section entered downtown Knoxville via Broadway before veering westward along Cumberland Avenue and out into West Knoxville along Kingston Pike. The Lee Highway, which connected New York and San Francisco, entered Knoxville from Bean Station to the northeast, and merged with the Dixie Highway in downtown Knoxville.Knoxville lay along the Dixie Highway roughly halfway between the Midwestern states and Florida, and thus made a convenient place for Florida-bound tourists to stop for the night. Throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, Kingston Pike was lined with motor courts and motels, and restaurants with oddly-shaped buildings and flashy signs designed to catch the attention of passers-by. Businesses in Dixie Lee Junction during this period consisted of "last-chance" ventures that provided food, fuel, and other supplies before south-bound drivers entered a predominantly-rural stretch of the highway en route to Chattanooga.

Unitia is an Unincorporated community of Loudon County, Tennessee. Historically it was a crossroads village, the site of a post office, and a stop on the Underground Railroad. The historical center of the community was flooded in the 1940s by the filling of the reservoir behind Fort Loudoun Dam.