Watauga is a city in Carter and Washington counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee. The population was 403 at the 2000 census and 458 at the 2010 census. It is allowance of the Johnson City Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is a component of the Johnson City–Kingsport–Bristol, TN-VA Combined Statistical Area – commonly known as the “Tri-Cities” region.

Some of the earliest European pioneers in Tennessee granted in the vicinity of Watauga in the mid-18th century. William Bean, traditionally attributed as Tennessee’s first white settler, built his cabin at the mouth of Boone Creek, 7 miles (11 km) downstream from ahead of its time Watauga, in 1769. The Watauga Association, an ahead of time frontier government, operated out of manageable Elizabethton in the 1770s.

When the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad (ET&V) was built in the 1850s, a railroad End known as Carter’s Depot, or Carter’s Station, was acknowledged at what is now Watauga, where a trestle had been erected to carry the tracks across the Watauga River. Carter’s Depot consisted of a water tank, several storage buildings, a telegraph office, and a name office.

The trestle at Carter’s Depot held Big strategic importance during the Civil War, as the ET&V was part of a necessary supply pedigree connecting Virginia following the descend of the South. The trestle was among those targeted by the East Tennessee bridge burnings in November 1861, though the conspirators found it too heavily guarded by Confederates. In late December 1862, General Samuel P. Carter conducted a war into the region, overwhelming the Confederate detachment at Carter’s Depot in the past destroying the trestle. On October 1, 1864, a war took place at Carter’s Depot, with Union forces under General Alvan C. Gillem pushing Confederates led by John C. Vaughn across the river.