Bighorn River Wind River Canyon near the town of Thermopolis. From there, the river flows through the Bighorn Basin in north central Wyoming, passing through Thermopolis and Hot Springs State Park. At the border with Montana, the river turns northeast, and flows past the north end of the Bighorn Mountains, through the Crow Indian Reservation, where the Yellowtail Dam forms the Bighorn Lake reservoir. The reservoir and the surrounding canyon are part of the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area. The Little Bighorn River joins the Bighorn near the town of Hardin, Montana. Approximately fifty miles farther downriver, the Bighorn River ends where
State of Franklin firmly back under the control of North Carolina. Soon thereafter, North Carolina once again ceded the area to the federal government to form the Southwest Territory, the precursor to the State of Tennessee. Sevier was elected in 1790 to the US Congress to represent the territory, and became Tennessee's first governor, in 1796. Col. John Tipton signed the Tennessee Constitution as the representative from Washington County. The Washington County farm of Col. John Tipton where the 1788 Battle of Franklin was fought has been preserved by the State of Tennessee as the Tipton-Haynes State Historic Site in southeastern Johnson City,