Catoosa Wildlife Management Area

The Catoosa WMA lies within the Emory River drainage, which is divided by a number of major stream drainages, including the Obed River, Daddy's Creek, Clear Creek, and Otter Creek. The Emory River meets the Obed River in the southeast corner of the area. The terrain is moderately rolling, ranging in elevation from to , with deep canyons cut by the streams. Over 98 percent of the WMA is forested and the wildlife populations have been restored. The healthy deer herd regularly produces trophy bucks for hunters, and wild turkey numbers are growing fast. Other game animals include European wild boar, fox squirrels, gray squirrels, ruffed grouse, raccoons, quail, rabbits, and mourning doves. Game fish include smallmouth bass, rock bass, bluegill, and muskellunge. ==History==

The first use of the plateau was as hunting grounds. Artifacts found in caves and rock shelters suggest Mississippian and later Cherokee hunters camped here but never established permanent dwellings. The hunting grounds were visited seasonally by the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Shawnees, and were the subject of repeated conflicts. Two years later, in 1799, Martin Steiner wrote, "...then we crossed barren hills where only bushes grew. Now and then one saw a little tree." There were many other such accounts indicating the open nature of the terrain and the presence of great herds of elk, deer, and bison. The white settlers visited the high country occasionally to mine coal and harvest timber before major industry came to the area with the first lumber mill in the 1870s. By 1911, two coal and lumber companies had formed a syndicate that exploited the region until the main bridges on their rail lines were destroyed by a flood in 1929. As the companies cleared the woodland they leased these lands to small farms for arable and animal farming. The Great Depression prevented the industrial companies from reinvesting in the repair of their railroads and businesses began to fail. In 1940 the Crossville Exchange Club appointed a committee to encourage the state to purchase some of the abandoned land for a wildlife management area. The Conservation Commission bought 63,000 acres (250 km2) from the Tennessee Mineral and Lumber Company in 1942 using Pittman–Robertson federal aid funds. In 1949 the Tennessee Game and Fish Commission, now the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), established a tentative purchase boundary encompassing some 90,000 acres (360 km2) within which they began to eliminate interior holdings through a land acquisition program. this program was still in train. ==References==