The Heartland Series - Sequatchie Valley Sequatchie Valley is a long and narrow valley hidden and isolated by the mountains on either side, it runs from SE Tennessee into Alabama. on the Cumberland Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains, Only 2 other places like it in the world, in Iraq and South Africa. A distinctive feature of the Sequatchie Valley is its straightness. From its northern end to its geological southern end at Browns Valley, the valley is almost perfectly straight. It is over 150 miles (240 km) long in the geologic sense and about 65 miles (105 km) long as the valley of the Sequatchie River. Its width is about 3–5 miles (5–8 km). The valley is bounded on either side by escarpments of the Cumberland Plateau. The portion of the plateau east of the valley is relatively narrow and known as Walden Ridge in Tennessee. To the west the plateau is simply called the Cumberland Plateau. In Bledsoe County, Tennessee a section of the west side escarpment is called Little Mountain, which also marks the Tennessee Valley Divide. In Alabama the plateau to the east of the valley is called Sand Mountain, while that to the west is Gunters Mountain. At its northern end, the Sequatchie Valley is marked by a more mountainous portion of the Cumberland Plateau known as the Crab Orchard Mountains. Between the main Crab Orchard Mountains and the Sequatchie Valley there is another valley, called Grassy Cove, located several miles north of Sequatchie Valley. Grassy Cove is a karst valley which, through underground erosion, should eventually become part of Sequatchie Valley (Thornbury 1965:149). Another, smaller karst valley, Bat Town Cove, is forming northeast of Grassy Cove, which may also grow and eventually become part of Sequatchie Valley. The Tennessee section of Sequatchie Valley contains the towns of Pikeville, Dunlap, Whitwell, Jasper, and, on the Tennessee River, South Pittsburg. Towns in the Alabama portion of the geologic valley include Bridgeport, Scottsboro, Guntersville, and, around the southern end, Blountsville. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequatchie_Valley

Donnie Laws tells a story in the Appalachia's of Indian Ghosts Guarding a farm field long ago next to Norris Lake in East Tennessee. What I find so interesting about this story is in January 2012 the 2nd or 3rd day after my arrival to my house in the Great Smokey mountains, I was unpacking and setting up house and I heard someone playing the Native American flute out in the back, so I went to the back door and looked to see who was playing it and back by the woods that go up the mountain behind my house, I saw standing at the forest's edge an Indian brave playing the flute. I thought to myself "AWESOME. I've got Cherokee neighbors!" so I walked over to where he stood to introduce myself and tell him his playing was beautiful, but when I got to where he stood he was gone. Where I had seen him standing I found a narrow path hidden by the thick brush in front of it and all around, then I heard the flute again further along the path in the woods, so I followed the path and the flute music thru the forest. Pretty soon I saw him a ways in front of me sitting on a large boulder playing his flute, as if he was waiting for me, so I ran over to him, but when I got there he was gone , again I heard his flute further ahead up the mountain. The path went up a small but steep hill covered in dust and rocks, I climbed it with some difficulty and followed the narrow path thru the woods, I saw him further up sitting on a big fallen tree and again ran over to him, and again he was gone. I found myself standing in a really wide path, a path big enough to put 3 trucks in side by side, surrounded on either side by massive old trees and thick brush and it appeared to go all the way to the top of the mountain on a steep incline. it was wild as if very few humans ever bothered with it anymore, the path was kept up by rain waters rushing down which left rocks and holes along the path. I followed the wide path up the mountain for a ways, I never heard the flute or seen the man again, but as I walked along I saw faces of destraught sorrowful Cherokee, men, women and children, and heard them crying in sorrow, I felt them beside me, all around me, marching up the steep mountain worn out, sick, heart broken and white men on horses hollering and beating them to go faster up the mountain, I saw wagons being pulled along up the path, I heard the clanging of the wooden wheels on the rocks, the poor mules half dead trying to pull the weight up the steep incline. I was overcome with heart breaking, soul peircing sorrow. so much so all I could do was fall to my knees and sob. as if I had just lost my most beloved. I have been walking that path regularly since, it was always abandoned, like my secret place, all my own but then a couple years went by and one day on a walk I saw someone had put up signs on the trees along it, that said Trail of Tears, historical path US Gov. . apparently the US gov decided to aknowledge and mark it.