Holston River: Knoxville, TN May 2008 Just outside of Knoxville, TN the Holston River joins with the French Broad River to form the Tennessee River. “Until 1933, the Holston River flowed past Knoxville and continued to its confluence with the Little Tennessee River at Lenoir City 51 miles downstream. At that point, the Tennessee River began, 601 miles upstream from the Ohio River at Paducah, Kentucky. "The headwaters of the Tennessee have been changed many times during the 18th and 19th centuries, but according to Tennessee Valley Authority historians, the reason for the last particular change, was that when the Tennessee Valley Authority was created in 1933, Congress mandated that, since the TVA headquarters were to be in downtown Knoxville, and from the headquarters, the federal agency would manage all the dams and flood control on the Tennessee River and its tributaries, the TVA headquarters had to be on the banks of the Tennessee River. For that reason, the headwaters of the Tennessee River were moved from Lenoir City 51 miles upstream past downtown Knoxville, to the confluence of the Holston and the French Broad Rivers, to fulfill the Congressional mandate for creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority.” —from Wikipedia