of the Rocky from the watershed of the Collins River to the west. Important tributaries of the Rocky include Harper Branch, Sycamore Branch, and Dyer Gulch Creek, which flow into the river from the west, and Samples Fork, Rocky Branch, and Pine Branch, which join the river from the east. Laurel Creek, which empties into the river's eastern bank just downstream from Goodbars, drains part of the town of Spencer. History Rock Island, a small island at the confluence of the Rocky River and Caney Fork, was an important early landmark and river ford for settlers in the eastern Highland Rim region. Two Indian trails, the Chickamauga Trail (later the Old Kentucky Road) and the Black Fox Trail, intersected near the island. Historian J. G. M. Ramsey reports a battle taking place at the island in 1793, near the end of the Cherokee–American wars. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, Higgenbotham's Trace (or Rainey's Turnpike), a major road connecting McMinnville with the Sequatchie Valley, crossed the Rocky River near Pleasant Hill Cemetery, just north of Van Buren-Sequatchie county line. In 1838, the northern route of the Trail of Tears, the path over which the Cherokee were removed from the eastern mountains to Oklahoma, followed this road. While the procession camped at the Rocky River, the Cherokee leader Junaluska and several supporters deserted and attempted to return to the east. They were eventually arrested and incarcerated. The Rocky River Crossing and the adjacent roadbed, which look much as they did 170 years ago, have since been added to the National Register of Historic Places. Historian Arthur Weir Crouch reported several early fords along the Rocky River, most notably Brights Ford at the river's Laurel Creek confluence, and Hash Ford, or Indian Ford, near its mouth. A wooden bridge was built at the latter ford in the mid-19th century, but was destroyed by a flood in 1872. As part of its Great Falls Dam project, the Tennessee Electric Power Company built the Yost Bridge about a mile above the river's mouth in 1915, and the Blanks Bridge about three miles above the river's mouth in 1916. A bridge for Tennessee Highway 30 was built in the early 1920s. Ecology and habitat improvement Siltation from surface mining conducted in the upper Rocky River basin during the early and mid-20th century damaged several sections of the river, and threatened two federally-listed species that