Maintaining the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers

Nashville District's Navigation Branch is responsible for maintaining 14 navigation locks and over 1100 miles of navigable river channels on the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, which represents ten percent of the U.S. Inland Waterway System. These rivers are also known as the "Twin Rivers" because of the way their paths closely mirror each other.

President Andrew Jackson gave the Army  Engineers their first mission to develop the Twin River Valleys in the early 1830s.  As the needs of the nation and the mid-south have changed, the Twin Rivers have changed to meet them.  Commerce on the Twin Rivers has evolved from canoes and flatboats loaded with a season's harvest to today's daily passage of 12 barge tows hauling over 17,000 tons of goods at a time.   

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