"Spruce-Tree Place," that once stood near modern Jonesborough, Tennessee. Others argue that, according to local lore, it actually means "Rushing Water(s)", "Dangerous Water(s)", or "Black Swirling Water". During the 1770s, European frontiersmen established the "Nolichucky settlements" along the river in modern Greene County, Tennessee, in what was then part of Cherokee territory. These settlements were aligned with the Watauga settlements in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee. As hostilities intensified in the mid-1770s between the settlers and a faction of the Cherokee, known as the "Chickamaugas," who were opposed to the settlements, John Sevier, at the time a young militia officer, began overseeing the construction of Fort Lee. After an invasion was launched by Chickamauga leader Dragging Canoe in July 1776, Sevier abandoned the unfinished fort and fled to the Watauga settlements. Sevier would later acquire the nickname "Nolichucky Jack," or "Chucky Jack," for his exploits along the river and in its vicinity. Famed frontiersman Davy Crockett was born along the river near Limestone, Tennessee, in 1786. The site is now the focus of Davy Crockett Birthplace State Park. The turn of the century brought trains hauling passengers (until 1955) and mostly coal on the Clinchfield Railroad (now operated by CSX), which still runs alongside the river through the gorge with bridged crossings at Unaka Springs (Erwin, Tennessee) and Poplar, North Carolina. At least one sunken railcar sits at the bottom of the river near the entrance to the Lost Cove Settlement, a civil-war era ghost town just upriver (and uphill) from the once-disputed Tennessee-North Carolina border. Whitewater rafting Between Poplar, North Carolina, and Unaka Springs, Tennessee, the Nolichucky River Gorge provides one of the more scenic and technical whitewater trips in the Southern United States, due in large part to its constant (and often rapid) fluctuations. The naturally flowing Nolichucky River is a popular whitewater rafting and canoeing destination having stretches of both whitewater areas and calm water. Rainfall upstream around Mount Mitchell makes the upper section rapids ever more impressive with significant rain causing extremely big water and un-runnable routes in otherwise ordinary areas. "Frank Gentry describes such a trip through the gorge with Bob Lawson on a rubber raft. Frank says, 'I just went along for the ride and a look at the scenery. Man-a-live, I didn't have time to look at anything! When that raft hit those rapids at "Rooster Tail" we were going round and round,