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Tennessee River History Timeline
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Image from National Archives and Records Administration
1540 Hernando DeSoto’s Spanish expedition travels the Tennessee River.
1600’s Tennessee River serves as part of French trade route between Mississippi and Charleston, South Carolina.
Early 1700's French establish several trading posts along Tennessee River.
1776 French and Indian War results in English control of much of North America.
1780 Area of Sheffield, Alabama settled as French trading post.
1784 Sheffield, Alabama founded.
1787 Cherokee village at the future site of Tuscumbia, Alabama is destroyed by General James Robertson.
1791 Knoxville becomes the capitol of the Territory South of the Ohio.
1804 Huntsville, Alabama Settled by John Hunt in at site of a spring.
1811 City of Huntsville, Alabama incorporated.
1815 Tuscumbia, Alabama first settled by whites.
1818 Florence, Alabama is surveyed by a Italian engineer.
1820 President Monroe reserved a site for a
town to be called Decatur, honoring Commodore Decatur of the
U.S. Navy.
1821 First steamboat travels river to the head of navigation at Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
1822 The steamboat Rocket begins
regular passage from Muscle Shoals to the mouth of the Tennessee at the
Ohio River.
1827 Paducah, Kentucky named by General
William Clark in Honor of the Indian Chief Paducah whose favorite
camping ground was located there.
1831 The first railroad west of the Allegheny Mountains is built in Tuscumbia, it runs two miles to the Tennessee River.
1833 Ross' Landing becomes Chattanooga, Tennessee after removal of the Cherokee.
1834 Tuscumbia, Courtland, and Decatur RR completed to transfer goods around the Muscle Shoals.
1836 Canal built around the Muscle Shoals to aid navigation.
September 6, 1861 General Grant occupies Puducah, Kentucky and the Union controls the mouth of the Tennessee River.
February 1862 Battle of Ft. Henry.
April 6-8, 1862 Battle of Shiloh.
November 23-25, 1863 Battle of Chattanooga.
May 1933 Tennessee Valley Authority formed.
1963
Norris and Wheeler Dams are the first to begin generating electricity.
1945 Kentucky Dam opened the Tennessee to year round commercial navigation from Knoxville to Paducah.
1949 TVA begins building coal/steam plants to meet the growing demand for power in the Valley.
1963 Work begins on the Land Between the Lakes, a recreational and educational area that was to serve as a model for outdoor education.
1967
Construction of Brown's Ferry begins, the world's largest nuclear power plant at
the time.
Created by MM 5/99 Revised August 2, 1999 smd.
