Unicoi Mountains

… in Cherokee and Graham Counties, N.C., and Monroe and Polk Counties, Tenn., form in part the common boundary line of the two states between the Little Tennessee River and Hiwassee River. The name is one of those in common use; it was suggested by Horace Kephart and approved by the nomenclature committees of the Great Smoky Mountains Park Commissions of North Carolina and Tennessee. The name—which, like Unaka, is a corruption of Unega, meaning "white"—was used in the 1789 act passed by the General Assembly of North Carolina that ceded what is now the state of Tennessee to the U.S. government: "where it is called Unicoy or Unaka Mountain between the Indian towns of Cowee and Old Chota."