East Tennessee Crossing
East Tennessee Crossing is a National Scenic Byway in Tennessee. Within Tennessee it covers roughly 85 miles. The map below shows its route. Use “Plan a drive” to open it in the Road Sorties route planner — already routing along East Tennessee Crossing with scenic roads turned on, ready to add your own stops.
Tennessee's East Tennessee Crossing Byway runs 83 miles on US 25E and State Route 32, from the North Carolina line to the Cumberland Gap Tunnel. Established in 2009, it's one of the newest additions to the National Scenic Byway system, starting in Cocke County's Cherokee National Forest. The corridor itself is one of the oldest in the region: Cherokee and Shawnee warriors used it as a game trail and raiding route long before Daniel Boone blazed the Wilderness Road along the same path, carrying roughly 300,000 settlers through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky between 1775 and 1810. Union and Confederate forces later moved troops and supplies along the same roads during the Civil War. In the early-to-mid 20th century, the stretch between Cumberland Gap and Tazewell earned the nickname Thunder Road for the bootleggers who ran moonshine over it, a history later fictionalized in the 1958 film and song of the same name.
- US 25E/SR 32
- Cumberland Gap
- 83 miles
- Wilderness Road
- Thunder Road moonshine history
- Daniel Boone
- Cherokee National Forest
Designated for its historic qualities
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Places to stop along East Tennessee Crossing
Christy Mission
The mountain mission near Del Rio that inspired Catherine Marshall's novel Christy, based on her mother's time teaching there in the early 1900s.
Crockett Tavern Museum
A Morristown reconstruction of the 1790s tavern run by Davy Crockett's father, on the site of the frontiersman's boyhood home.
Cumberland Gap
A tiny old town beneath the famous gap, with shops, a historic iron furnace, and trails up into the national park.
Website
Where to Stay along East Tennessee Crossing
4 campgrounds and RV parks sit within about 5 miles of East Tennessee Crossing.
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What is a National Scenic Byway?
National Scenic Byways are roads recognized at the federal level for at least one outstanding quality — scenic, natural, historic, cultural, archaeological or recreational — that gives travelers a reason to seek them out rather than just pass through.