Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area is a state park located in Elizabethton in the U.S. state of Tennessee. The park consists of 70 acres situated along the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River, a National Historic Landmark where a series of events critical to the establishment of the states of Tennessee and Kentucky, and the settlement of the Trans-Appalachian frontier in general, took place. Along with the historic shoals, the park includes a visitor center and museum, the reconstructed Fort Watauga, and the Carter Mansion (at a satellite location in Elizabethton).

For over a thousand years before the arrival of European explorers, Sycamore Shoals and adjacent lands had been inhabited by Native Americans. The first permanent European settlers arrived in 1770, and established the Watauga Association, one of the first written constitutional governments west of the Appalachian Mountains in 1772. Richard Henderson and Daniel Boone negotiated the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals in 1775, which saw the sale of millions of acres of Cherokee lands in Kentucky and Tennessee and led to the building of the Wilderness Road. During the American Revolution, Sycamore Shoals was both the site of Fort Watauga, where part of a Cherokee invasion was thwarted in 1776, and the mustering ground for the Overmountain Men in 1780.

Below: Karen Duquette at the reconstructed Fort Watauga in Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area

The two RV Gypsies casually walked around the Mountain River Trailhead on the 1-mile-loop (round trip), graveled Mountain River Trail that follows the partially wooded south bank of the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River. Interpretive signs along the trail explained the various historical events that occurred at Sycamore Shoals.

Below: The two RV Gypsies enjoyed a leisurely stroll around the Watauga River.

Oddities in Bristol/Kingsport

Bristol/Kingsport KOA

Doe River and a Covered Bridge
in Elizabethton

Blue Hole Falls,
Carter County

Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area, Elizabethton, TN (this page)

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