Little River Canyon National Preserve is a place of beauty that is also host to stories of adversity and survival. Over 1,100 men, women, and children moved through the Little River area during the removal of the Cherokee and Muscogee (Creek) Indians. Cherokee John Benge led the Fort Payne group of American Indians over 798 miles on the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma, crossing the Little River above the falls near the present-day Highway 35 bridge.
