Little Pigeon River (Tennessee)

The Little Pigeon River is a river located entirely within Sevier County, Tennessee. It rises from a series of streams which flow together on the dividing ridge between the states of Tennessee and North Carolina, with most of the flow from inside the boundary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The river has three main forks or prongs, East, Middle, and West.

Little Pigeon River
The mill dam of the Pigeon Forge Mill along the West Fork of the Little Pigeon River in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
Location
Country	United States
State	Tennessee
Physical characteristics
Source	Middle Prong Little Pigeon River
• location	below Mount Guyot in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee
• coordinates	35°41′35″N 83°19′12″W[1]
• elevation	3,028 ft (923 m)
2nd source	Porters Creek
• location	near Charlies Bunion in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee
• coordinates	35°38′50″N 83°21′47″W[2]
• elevation	4,680 ft (1,430 m)
Source confluence
• location	Greenbrier Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee
• coordinates	35°42′32″N 83°22′57″W[3]
• elevation	1,654 ft (504 m)
Mouth	French Broad River
• location	near Sevierville, Tennessee
• coordinates	35°55′51″N 83°35′43″W[3]
• elevation	860 ft (260 m)[3]
Length	30 mi (48 km)[4]
Basin size	373 sq mi (970 km2)[4]
Discharge
• location	Sevierville, downstream from confluence with West Prong, 4.4 miles (7.1 km) above the mouth(mean for water years 1921–1981)[5]
• average	570 cu ft/s (16 m3/s)(mean for water years 1921–1981)[5]
• minimum	2.8 cu ft/s (0.079 m3/s)September 1925[5]
• maximum	55,000 cu ft/s (1,600 m3/s)February 1875[5]
Basin features
River system	Tennessee → Ohio → Mississippi

The East and Middle prongs are less notable divisions of the river, with the Middle Prong emerging from the Greenbrier area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and paralleled for most of its remaining length by State Route 416 up to its confluence with the East Fork near U.S. Route 411. The East Fork is the only division in which the main stem does not emerge from the national park, formed by a series of small streams in the foothills of English Mountain draining large portions of the Camp Hollow, Pearl Valley, Ball Hollow, and Jones Cove valleys and running along State Road 339. The Harrisburg Covered Bridge is a landmark structure from the 1800s that crosses the East Fork. The West Fork is far better known because it drains the major tourist towns of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. The Old Mill of Pigeon Forge, a working grist mill constructed in 1830 by Isaac Love on a milldam impoundment of the West Fork in downtown Pigeon Forge, is one of the best examples of 19th century hydropower technology, as well as being one of the most photographed mills in America. The confluence of the West and East forks is at Sevierville at Forks of the River. From there the stream continues to flow northward, paralleled by State Route 66, until its confluence with the French Broad River just downstream from Douglas Dam.

Despite its name, it is not a tributary of the nearby Pigeon River, which flows into the French Broad well above Douglas Dam and the resultant reservoir.