Del Rio, Tennessee

Del Rio is a small community along the French Broad River in Cocke County, roughly halfway between Asheville and Knoxville on what was the main pre-interstate highway connecting the two cities. A Native American village once stood here; the first European settler, John Huff, arrived around seventeen eighty-four after serving in the Revolution. Del Rio is best known as the birthplace of Grace Moore, born in eighteen ninety-eight, who rose from this mountain hollow to international fame as an operatic soprano.

Moore performed at the Metropolitan Opera and in Hollywood films, becoming one of the most celebrated American classical voices of the nineteen thirties. She died in a plane crash in nineteen forty-seven. The French Broad River here follows the same ancient corridor through the Blue Ridge that Route Twenty-Five traces today.