Mile 882.3 - Welcome to Tennessee

John Ruskey

20 Apr 2026 � 1 min read

882.3 Welcome to Tennessee

After meandering in and out of Tennessee (at Donaldson Point) the river leaves Kentucky for good and enters Tennessee on the downstream side of Bessie’s Bend at mile 882.3 RBD. The river here rolls along the state of Tennessee out the bottom of the Missouri Bootheel and into the wild floodplain below bordering the Arkansas Delta. It’s so wild that no levees are needed for 60 miles along the Tennessee (left bank) side of the river from Moss Island to Memphis! This section is full of tributary rivers with deep woody bottoms, strange colorful mud slides, and dozens of islands and back channels to explore, many protected within wildlife refuges and state parks. There is some heavy industry along the way, a couple of noisy steel plants and a giant power plant (below Osceola), and some busy grain docks and two harbors -- none of which you’ll want to camp near. Nevertheless your hard paddling will be rewarded again and again with fabulous views of the Chickasaw Bluffs along the Western edge of the state of Tennessee and adjacent bottomland hardwood forests, including the colossal cliff-bluffs at Fort Pillow (1st Chickasaw Bluff), the astounding colorful chalky glacier of mud above Richardson’s Landing (2nd Chickasaw Bluff), Meeman-Shelby State Forest (3rd Chickasaw Bluff) and finally the sweeping view of the Memphis skyline, including the Memphis Bridge and the Pyramid, and downtown Memphis (which straddles the 4th Chickasaw Bluff). The vista from the river is unparalleled! Points of interest include Obion RIver, Moss Island Wildlife Management Area, Nucor Yamamato Steel, Island 30/Osceola Back Channel, Hatchie River Bottoms, Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park, Hickman Bar, Loosahatchie and Wolf Rivers, the elegant “M” Bridge and finally the eye-popping view of skyscrapers over the Beale Street Harbor and Landing. The vista from the river is unparalleled! You’ve never seen downtown Memphis if you haven’t viewed it from the river! After bouncing below the last Chickasaw Bluffs at Memphis, the Mighty Mississippi flows southwesterly in giant meandering loops into the verdant and fantastically fertile Mississippi Delta and exits Tennessee to enter the state of Mississippi. Paddlers have 145 miles to reach Memphis from here. There are 167 miles of Mississippi River total flowing along the western border of Tennessee (175 miles if you add in the 8-mile piece at Donaldson Point).

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Table of Contents Appendix I - The Lower Missouri River Water Trail Appendix II - Upper Mississippi River Water Trails Appendix III - Mike Clark: Chain of Rocks Appendix IV - Mike Clark: Alton to Arch Appendix V - Over the Chain of Rocks with the Lewis & Clark Appendix

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