US 19 runs parallel to it between Topton and Murphy, North Carolina, where it crosses the river via a small bridge.

The Alleghenian orogeny caused both uplift and the metamorphism of rock at the highest pressure points within the various Appalachian mountain chains.

The Snowbird and Unicoi Mountains, which border the Valley River, contain silver, gold, copper, limestone, sandstone, marble, brown iron ore in economically recoverable quantities.

According to the most commonly received Indian tradition, they were excavated more than a century ago, by a company of Spaniards from Florida.

They are said to have worked there for two or three summers, to have obtained a white metal, and prospered greatly in their mining operations, until the Cherokees, finding that if it became generally known that there were valuable mines in their country, the cupidity of the white men would expel them from it, determined in solemn council to destroy the whole party, and that in obedience to that decree no one of the adventurous strangers was allowed to return to the country whence they came.

Though this story accords very well with the Indian laws which condemned to death those who disclosed the existence of mines to white men, yet I do not regard it as entitled too much credit".

[9] At Tomotla, the river has a mean annual discharge of 247 cu ft/s (7.0 m3/s)[10] Indigenous peoples have been proven to have settled here between 8000 and 1000 BC.

The traders and colonists of South Carolina classified six (6) regions of Cherokee villages in 1700 by geographic groupings, based on their relation to the colonial settlements at the Atlantic coast.

Although no clear record exists, De Soto probably passed near the Cherokee Valley Towns of Conoske, Tomatly, Little Telliquo and Nayowee.

[20] The Valley River saw a succession of administrative and political changes as the counties of western North Carolina were formed and subdivided.

In 1753 the Valley River was part of the as yet unsurveyed western end of Anson County, North Carolina.

Jacques Nicolas Bellin's Map of Carolina and Georgia of 1757 shows but does not label the Valley River.

Historic sections of Murphy and Andrews have been restored and bring some tourism to the area; there are also a large flea market, and recreational opportunities provided by the Hiwassee Lake.