Alabama Landscapes
Highland Rim

Tennessee River System

After leaving the Cumberland Plateau, the Tennessee River continues to flow in a northwesterly direction.  Small tributaries flow off Little Mountain and the uplands to the north into the main river.  The river and its tributaries maintain relatively straight channel paths (sinuosity of the Tennessee River is 1.16 and Elk River, one of its main tributaries, is 1.41)

Much of the Tennessee flows in its own alluvium (unconsolidated material deposited by the river when it floods), but in the shoals area (from present-day Florence to Decatur) rapids, shoals and shallow water stopped transportation up-river.  The shoals occurred where the river had down cut through the Tuscumbia Limestone and struck the more resistant Fort Payne Chert.  In 1924 Wilson Dam was completed at Florence and in 1936 Wheeler dam was completed upstream.  These dams and the locks associated with them made the Tennessee navigable.

 TVA operates three hydroelectricity plants on the Tennessee River with total capacity of about 1,200 MW.   Wheeler and Wilson plants are the largest in the state.