Tradition holds that the waterfall was named for Issaqueena, a Creek maiden captured by the Cherokee. In the most popular version of the legend, based on Rev. J.W. Daniels' 1898 poem “Cateechee of Keowee,” she was captured and given the name Cateechee, then fell in love with a white trader named Allan Francis. After overhearing Cherokee plans to attack frontier settlements, she rode a swift pony to Allan's trading post to warn him, passing Six-Mile Mountain, Twelve Mile River, and Eighteen Mile Creek before reaching Fort Ninety-Six ninety-six miles later. Fearing Cherokee retribution, Issaqueena remained with Allan and married him, and in time they and their newborn baby moved to Stumphouse Mountain and built a home there. Later, after a Cherokee chief angered the white settlers and sent warriors to capture her, she ran toward the waterfall and, knowing the Cherokee believed evil spirits lived in waterfalls, pretended to leap to her death, hiding on a ledge below the top until it was safe to rejoin her family.