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 inside the boundary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The river is subdivided with three separate tributaries: 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 East Prong paralleled for most of its length by State Route 416, and the Middle Prong emerging from the Greenbrier area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The West Prong is far better known because it drains the major tourist towns of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. The confluence of the two forks is at Sevierville. 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.