Tug Fork
Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Main otherScript error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Template:Main other The Tug Fork is a tributary of the Big Sandy River, Template:Convert long,[1] in southwestern West Virginia, southwestern Virginia, and eastern Kentucky in the United States. Via the Big Sandy and Ohio rivers, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River.
It is also known as the Tug Fork River or the Tug River. The United States Board on Geographic Names settled on "Tug Fork" as the stream's official name in 1975.[2]
The Tug Fork rises in the Appalachian Mountains of extreme southwestern West Virginia, in southern McDowell County, near the Virginia state line. It flows in a meandering course through the mountains generally northwest, past Welch. Approximately Template:Convert northwest of Welch, it briefly forms approximately Template:Convert of the state line between West Virginia (northeast) and Virginia (southwest). For the remainder of its course it forms part of the boundary between West Virginia (east) and Kentucky (west), flowing northwest past Williamson, West Virginia. It joins the Levisa Fork at Louisa, Kentucky to form the Big Sandy.
The river flows through an especially remote mountainous region in its upper course. The river valley between Pike County, Kentucky and Mingo County, West Virginia was the scene of the infamous Hatfield–McCoy feud in the late 19th century.
Toponymist George R. Stewart writes about the origin of the name "Tug Fork". In 1756 a small army of Virginians and Cherokees conducted the Sandy Creek Expedition against the Shawnee. At one point they killed and ate two buffaloes and hung their hides on a tree. Later they returned and, being out of provisions, took the hides and cut them into thin strips called "tugs". These they roasted and ate.[3]Template:Rp For this reason, the story goes, the stream was given the name "Tug." Stewart also points out another possible origin. Even if the story is true, the second explanation may have reinforced the name. In the Cherokee language "tugulu" refers to the forks of a stream, as in the Tugaloo River and other streams in former Cherokee lands named "tug".[4][5]
See also
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- List of Kentucky rivers
- List of Virginia rivers
- List of West Virginia rivers
- River borders of U.S. states
- Martin County Sludge Spill
References
External links
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- ↑ U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map, accessed June 13, 2011
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedGNIS Tug Fork - ↑ Pendleton, William Cecil, "Chapter V: The Sandy Expedition," in History of Tazewell County and Southwest Virginia: 1748-1920. W. C. Hill printing Company, 1920.
- ↑ George R. Stewart. Names on the Land. Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston (1967).
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- Pages with script errors
- Rivers of Kentucky
- Rivers of Virginia
- Rivers of West Virginia
- Borders of West Virginia
- Borders of Kentucky
- Rivers of Wayne County, West Virginia
- Rivers of Mingo County, West Virginia
- Rivers of McDowell County, West Virginia
- Landforms of Buchanan County, Virginia
- Rivers of Pike County, Kentucky
- Rivers of Martin County, Kentucky
- Rivers of Lawrence County, Kentucky
- Tug Fork
- Pages with reference errors