French Broad River

… is formed in S Transylvania County near Rosman by the junction of North Fork and West Fork. It flows NE in Transylvania and into Henderson County, where it turns NW to flow through Buncombe and Madison Counties into Tennessee. From the state line, it flows W 102 mi. to join Holston River near Knoxville to form Tennessee River. One of the Cherokee names was Tah-keeos-tee (racing waters). Others, frequently for only a part of the river, were Poe-li-co, Agiqua, and Zillicoah. Known by the English at first as Broad River and appears as such on the De Brahm manuscript map of Indian Nations in the Southern Department, 1766. By 1776 the present name was in use. Named because much of the territory that it drained W of the Blue Ridge was held by the French in the eighteenth century.