The Clear Fork (also known as the Clear Fork River or Clear Fork Creek) is a 27.2-mile-long (43.8 km) stream draining part of the Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee. It is a tributary of the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. By that river, the Cumberland River, and the Ohio River, it is part of the Mississippi River watershed.
The Clear Fork rises on the Cumberland Plateau in southern Fentress County, Tennessee. It is composed of two major components, the North Prong and the South Prong, and numerous smaller tributaries. The North Prong drains an area adjacent to and east of U.S. Highway 127. The South Prong is slightly further east; it and its tributaries form an important portion of the border between Fentress County and Morgan County.
The former English settlement of Rugby, Tennessee, promoted in the late 19th century as a settlement for the "second sons" of English nobility who did not receive hereditary peerages, is located on the Plateau above the Clear Fork valley; swimming in its pools provided the "Rugby Colony" with an important recreational diversion. The stream crosses into Scott County through an oil field developed by the petroleum industry and reaches its confluence with the New River. From this point the combined stream is known as the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River; the upper reaches of the stream are the focal point of a National Recreation Area.
Famous quotes containing the words clear, fork and/or south:
“The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.”
—John Steinbeck (1902–1968)
“Wherever a man separates from the multitude, and goes his own way in this mood, there indeed is a fork in the road, though ordinary travelers may see only a gap in the paling. His solitary path across lots will turn out the higher way of the two.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear—the city of London and the South Seas.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)