The river was named after Captain Thomas Bannister who was the first European to discover the river in 1830 by Surveyor General John Septimus Roe in 1832.
To the north of SR 41 are the watersheds of Little Falls Creek east of White Oak Mountain and the Bannister River west of the mountain; these streams empty into the Dan River at Danville and near South Boston, respectively.
Mississippi River | River Thames | Amazon River | Columbia River | Hudson River | Colorado River | Potomac River | river | Ohio River | Missouri River | Delaware River | Murray River | River Tyne | Madeira River | Volga River | River Nene | River Clyde | River Trent | River Severn | Amur River | River Wear | Allegheny River | Red River | Dnieper River | Yarra River | Paraná River | River Tees | Fraser River | Yangtze River | Tocantins River |