Big Bottom Farm - Sparta, TN

The Big Bottom Farm, Big Bottom Road, White County, TN, is well-known in White and Van Buren Counties for its location on and fronting the scenic headwaters of the Caney Fork River. The shoals lying just upriver from the confluence with Cane Creek are reported to be the high-water mark for the downstream flood control reservoir. Cane Creek is a primary creek feeding north and off the Cumberland Plateau to the valley from the 30,000 acre Fall Creek Falls Tennessee State Park located about 20-miles to the south near Spencer. Big Bottom was referred to by local farmers and timbermen as the area east of the river ford which is comprised of modest sized open fertile fields, large limestone boulders, and flood plain at this valley forming water off the plateau to the east and south. The oldest of the Tennessee Valley Authority hydroelectric and water control dams (constructed 1915) is downstream about seventeen miles west and is known as Great Falls Dam, Rock Island, Tennessee.
The free-flowing Caney Fork River forms east of the Big Bottom farm shoals from several creeks to the west, including Bee Creek, which drain and originate on and off the plateau. Many of these creeks form in the State of Tennessee’s 10,000-acre Bridgestone/Firestone Centennial Wilderness area. This remote yet accessible property makes the Big Bottom Farm unique. The most famous sites in the state’s wilderness area are Scotts Gulf and Lost Creek, which are heavily forested with native hardwoods. This immediate area is one of the most beautiful, pristine, yet assessable wild places left in Tennessee. Because of its lack of human development activity, it is attractive to a variety of wildlife, spelunkers, hunters, and hikers. This area is a vast unspoiled wilderness owned by the state and covers an area between Cumberland, White and Van Buren Counties in Tennessee.
Prior to the arrival of the European settlers, this wilderness area was hunting grounds for the American Indians, predominately Cherokee and Creek. The first settlers arriving in this area occurred before Tennessee was admitted as a state and were squatting on land in what was then North Carolina. These settlers recognized there was an abundance of hardwood, fertile valleys, water, and game available. Early settlers arrived from Virginia and North Carolina, seeking to own their own land. Eventually the land originally settled on the upper Caney Fork River was purchased from the newly formed State of Tennessee by a dozen or so families shortly after 1796 when Tennessee officially became a state. The area has maintained its historical use for timber harvesting and farming over the last 230 years.
The Big Bottom Farm, and Frazier’s Chapel Church which was originally a school, has been protected from the growth and expansion by Tennessee’s three closest urban areas because of its remote location. The framing of the blue-green clear waters of the Caney Fork and the pristine lands surrounding the farm are stunning attributes to this secluded, scenic one-of-a-kind property.
Contact: Jamie Spencer with Mossy Oak Properties, Tennessee Land & Farm for details about this one of a kind property. [e-mail]