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Cleanup efforts in Clifton, Tennessee.
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A river event in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Picture this: A 652-mile trail, passing through four states and dozens of cities and counties. Impressive, right? Now imagine that it’s on a river.
That’s the vision initially shared by Brad Collett, Patrick Osborne and others about what is known as the Tennessee RiverLine. Collett is the executive director with the group, and Osborne is the senior planning and design manager.
The idea is to create a continuous system of water experiences along the Tennessee River from its beginning in Knoxville, Tennessee, to its confluence with the Ohio River in Paducah, Kentucky.
The University of Tennessee Extension Service spearheads the effort, with partners including the University of Tennessee, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the National Park Service.
“This is truly a transformational initiative,” Collett said. “It’s really exciting to be a part of it.”
Those outdoor experiences include kayaking, paddle-boarding, canoeing and tubing, along with riverfront trails and parks.
“One thing we focus on is just getting people out on the river,’ Collett said, an effort that includes both recreation and stewardship. “We want to reframe the river as a 1.2 million acre park.”
Collett is a professor of landscape architecture at the University of Tennessee. The RiverLine concept actually came from his students in 2016.
“The question was, ‘how can we be better stewards of the river?’” he said, adding that while people in Knoxville were obviously aware of it, very few actually knew the Tennessee River.
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Participants in the Pitt to Port Paddle.
“We wanted to start at home—to inspire residents in Knoxville,” Collett said. “The river is very present, but people didn’t realize how it can be a quality of life enhancement for everyone.”
He often talks about the power of partnership, and in a sense that is related to both the greatest challenges and satisfactions of the RiverLine project.
“This is massive in scale—generational, really—but there are such an abundance of opportunities,” Collett said. “The biggest challenge is setting priorities. How do we find that focus?”
On the other hand, seeing people come together for the river is very gratifying. Some have compared the RiverLine to an older, world-famous trail that goes through the Southeast. “It’s humbling to be mentioned in the same breath as the Appalachian Trail,” he said.
Like the AT, there are a number of trickle-down benefits for communities along the RiverLine. The first is economic. In 2022, Collett said, the national outdoor economy surpassed $1 trillion for the first time.
There’s plenty of room to grow in both direct and indirect spending, Collett said.
Experts also see health benefits, which might be a little harder to quantify initially, but when greater activity levels result in avoided healthcare expenses, that’s certainly a positive outcome.
And then there are the aesthetic improvements.
“As a landscape architect, what excites me most is helping communities reshape themselves with new parks and trails,” Collett said. “A lot of communities we work with don’t have parks and recreation departments, and don’t have access to design or (planning) in those areas.”
The RiverLine helps fill in those gaps.
Neighborhoods become a part of the RiverLine by applying to join the Tennessee RiverTowns program.
“There are currently 22 total communities enrolled in the RiverTowns program,” according to Osborne.
“Seven are in stage one, where the focus is on outreach and engagement,” Osborne said. “This is where we really learn about how they view the river and what their aspirations are.”
He said that 15 communities are in stage two, where the RiverLine staff take the information gathered in stage one and determine priorities and what kind of infrastructure improvements will be needed.
“This requires community collaboration and mutual understanding,” Osborne said. “It requires a community to transcend electoral cycles. With any ambitious plan some skepticism is not uncommon, but it’s exciting to see this transform into enthusiasm.”
Work at the local level is key to success, Osborne said.
“Keeping up momentum is the challenge, but our local leadership teams are remarkably helpful,” he said. “Creating meaningful partnerships over time is incredibly important to us.”
The recreation that will be available varies widely depending on the location.
“Each community boasts its own unique charm,” Osborne said. “Urban areas (Chattanooga, for example) might have existing recreational opportunities along the riverfront, and Knoxville has a fair amount of urban wilderness, but a smaller town might need an entirely new park or trail system.”
Environmental concerns and stewardship are other key focal points for Osborne and the RiverLine team.
“The Tennessee River is one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems around, and we want to promote biodiversity,” he said. “We always try to incorporate native plants to our green infrastructure.”
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A paddle event in Knoxville, Tennessee.
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One of the areas Osborne works on is conceptual designs for towns and communities along the river. According to Danielle Gibson, president and CEO of tourism in Decatur/Morgan County, Alabama, these designs are very helpful.
“Having a conceptual plan in place when grant money becomes available has been a huge benefit,” Gibson said.
Once Decatur’s application to become a RiverTown was accepted, Gibson said, the public response in the northern Alabama community was quite positive.
“We got a lot of really good feedback on things like boat access, splash pads and dog parks,” she said. “The community was saying almost the same thing as the leadership!”
Gibson said she was really intrigued by the way Collett and the RiverLine team packaged the plan, and jumped at the chance to make better use of a major resource.
“We’re known as the River City, but we hadn’t really leaned into that. We have a lot of industry here, and that takes up a lot of our riverfront. So we’ve started thinking about how to incorporate recreation into our industrial areas,” she said.
“Meshing the two has been a challenge, but it’s also a huge opportunity,” Gibson added.
Calvert City, Kentucky, is near the RiverLine’s endpoint in Paducah. Blair Travis, director of marketing, communications and business development, said they became a RiverTown in 2020.
“I went to a community meeting and they had a discussion about a continuous water trail system from Knoxville to Paducah, and I thought it was a really cool idea,” Travis said. “We saw it as a great opportunity to put us on the map.”
Calvert City applied and was accepted.
“Since then it’s been amazing,” Travis said.
Access to the river was part of the reason for the founding of Calvert City, and later it became a railroad hub. But Calvert City had drifted away from the river, Travis said.
“River and rail access meant that we had industry, but now we’re returning to the river in a more recreational way,” Travis said.
Calvert City shares a fleet of 12 kayaks with Paducah, and Travis said kayaking events have proven to be increasingly popular.
“We’re seeing increased visitation, which helps on the economic side,” Travis said. “People are coming here looking to kayak.”
Interestingly, though, the town is seeing more paddlers who are doing the entire 652-mile length of the Tennessee River. The trek takes 30-35 days to complete. Calvert City is the last stop before the final 17-mile leg of the trail to Paducah.
“We’re some of the trail angels along the way,” Travis said.
South Pittsburg, Tennessee, is another town that is getting in touch with its river roots. Walker Henley, vice president of the South Pittsburg Area Revitalization Quest, a nonprofit that promotes South Pittsburgh and Marion County, said getting involved in RiverLine was a wakeup call, in a sense.
“It shined a light on the fact that our town had become completely disconnected from the river,” Henley said. “It’s right there, but we weren’t taking advantage of it.”
The town hosted a number of events where “we invited people to reconnect with the river, to get their feet wet, literally,” Henley said. Out of 100 people who turned out for a recent paddle event, less than half had ever done it before.
Looking to the future, Henley said a 16-acre riverfront park is in the works. He also hopes to coordinate more with other RiverTowns.
“This has been great for a community like ours,” he said. “It helps us reach our full potential.”
That’s a sentiment echoed by Gibson.
“They sprovide resources we wouldn’t ordinarily have,” she said. “Advocacy is a big part of who they are, and everything they do, they do with excellence. We are proud to be a part of it.”
Learn more
For more information, including interactive maps and trip-planning guides, visit tnriverline.org.