Valley River

The Valley River is a tributary of the Hiwassee River that begins as a pair of springs in the Snowbird Mountains of Cherokee County, North Carolina and descends 2,960 feet (900 m) in elevation in approximately forty miles (64 km) to enter the Hiwassee embayment at Murphy, North Carolina. The Valley River flows generally southwest, roughly paralleling US 19 between Topton, North Carolina, and Murphy, North Carolina having a total watershed of 120 m2 (11.15km2)

The Valley River’s origin dates from the uplifting of the Appalachian chain during the Paleozoic Era, Devonian Period, in an event known as the Alleghenian orogeny. Earlier in the Paleozoic the area was the site of shallow seas which resulted in large limestone deposits. The Alleghenian orogeny caused both uplift and the metamorphism of rock at the highest pressure points within the various Appalachian mountain chains. The Snowbird and Unicoi Mountains which border the Valley River contain silver, gold, copper, limestone, sandstone, marble, brown iron ore in economically recoverable quantities. The erosion of the mountains over a 480 million year period allowed the Valley River to carve a broad flat valley with rich fertile soil.

Marble, North Carolina is the site of high-quality white, gray, pink and blue marble. It has been known since the removal of the Cherokee in 1838-1839 and has been quarried intermittently ever since.

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