Watauga

River flowing through North Carolina and Tennessee, USA; length 100 km/60 mi. It rises in North Carolina's Pisghah National Forest, flows northwest into Tennessee, passes through Watauga Lake, and enters the South Fork of the Holston River to the southeast of Kingsport.

Course From its source, Grandfather Mountain, the Watauga winds between Appalachian ranges into Tennessee. Some 11 km/7 mi east of Elizabethton, the 97-m/318-ft-high Watauga Dam (1949) impounds Watauga Lake, which backs up almost to the North Carolina border. The lake also receives waters of the Elk and other shorter rivers. Proceeding northwest from the dam, the Watauga passes Elizabethton on its way to the South Fork.

History The Watauga Association was a government established by settlers on the Watauga, Holston, and Nolichucky rivers in 1772, on land leased from the Cherokees within the westward extension of North Carolina's charter. The Association went out of existence in 1775 and North Carolina reasserted control; the area was later (1784–88) part of the state of Franklin before Tennessee's admission to statehood.

Watauga

Town in Tarrant County, northeast Texas; population (1990) 20,000. It is a largely residential suburb of Fort Worth, 16 km/10 mi north-northeast of the city centre.