Chilhowee (Cherokee town)

Chilhowee (Cherokee: ᏧᎷᎾᎢ, romanized: Tsulunawe) was a prehistoric and historic Native American site in present-day Blount and Monroe counties in Tennessee, in what were the Southeastern Woodlands. Although now submerged by the Chilhowee Lake impoundment of the Little Tennessee River, the Chilhowee site was home to a substantial 18th-century Overhill Cherokee town. It may have been the site of the older Creek village "Chalahume" visited by Spanish explorer Juan Pardo in 1567. The Cherokee later pushed the Muscogee Creek out of this area. Although Chilhowee was destroyed by Euro-American frontiersmen who fought the Cherokee in the late 18th century, the village's name is still used for various entities throughout East Tennessee. Along with Chilhowee Dam and its reservoir, places and entities named after Chilhowee include a mountain, a geologic formation, several churches and schools, and a park and neighborhood in Knoxville.