Tallassee (Cherokee town)

Tallassee (also "Talassee," "Talisi," "Tellassee," and various similar spellings) is a prehistoric and historic Native American site in present-day Blount and Monroe counties, Tennessee in the southeastern United States. Tallassee (Cherokee: ᏔᎵᏏ, romanized: Talisi) was the southernmost (and furthest upriver) of a string of Overhill Cherokee towns that existed along the lower Little Tennessee River on the west side of the Appalachian Mountains in the 18th century. Although Tallassee receives scant attention in primary historical accounts, it is one of the few Overhill towns to be shown on every major 18th-century map of the Little Tennessee Valley. Salvage excavations conducted in the 1950s prior to construction of a dam on the Little Tennessee River also revealed much earlier indigenous habitation here, dating to the Woodland period (1000 B.C.–1000 A.D.). The site was occupied throughout much of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture period (900–1600 A.D.). A prehistoric substructure platform mound was found, which was likely constructed about 1000 AD in this period. Evidence of the historic Cherokee included more than two dozen burials, with grave goods showing established European trading, as well as refuse pits and remnants of a burned house. The Tallassee site is now submerged by Chilhowee Lake, an impoundment of the Little Tennessee River created by the completion of Chilhowee Dam downriver in 1957. The shoreline above the site is occupied by the Calderwood Hydroelectric Development Area, which was established by the Aluminum Company of America in the 1920s. It was a base for the construction of Cheoah, Santeetlah, and Calderwood dams further upriver. The modern hamlet of Tallassee was not established until the early 20th century. It is located 7 miles (11 km) downstream, near Chilhowee Dam.