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111-516: The headwaters of Paint Branch are located near Spencerville (about 11.5 miles (18.5 km) north of Washington, D.C. ) and the stream flows south for 14 miles (23 km) to its confluence with the Northeast Branch. The watershed area is 20.8 square miles (54 km) and includes portions of the communities of Spencerville, Cloverly , Fairland , Colesville , White Oak and College Park, Maryland. The Paint Branch subwatershed

222-409: A lake / sea or its confluence with another river. Each headwater is considered one of the river's sources , as it is the place where surface runoffs from rainwater , meltwater and/or spring water begin accumulating into a more substantial and consistent flow that becomes a first-order tributary of that river. The tributary with the longest course downstream of the headwaters is regarded as

333-536: A tributary of the Mississippi, the Missouri River is slightly longer and carries a comparable volume of water. When combined with the lower Mississippi River, it forms the world's fourth-longest river system . For over 12,000 years, people have depended on the Missouri River and its tributaries as a source of sustenance and transportation. More than ten major groups of Native Americans populated

444-562: A confluence of tributaries can be a true river source, though both often provide the starting point for the portion of a river carrying a single name. For example, National Geographic and virtually every other geographic authority and atlas define the source of the Nile River not as Lake Victoria 's outlet where the name "Nile" first appears, which would reduce the Nile's length by over 900 km (560 mi) (dropping it to fourth or fifth on

555-688: A debt crisis, Napoleon offered to sell the entirety of Louisiana, including the Missouri River, for $ 15 million – amounting to less than 3¢ per acre. The deal was signed in 1803, doubling the size of the United States with the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory . In 1803, Jefferson instructed Meriwether Lewis to explore the Missouri and search for a water route to the Pacific Ocean. By then, it had been discovered that

666-600: A large endorheic drainage called the Great Divide Basin exists between the Missouri and Green watersheds in western Wyoming. This area is sometimes counted as part of the Missouri River watershed, even though its waters do not flow to either side of the Continental Divide. To the north, the much lower Laurentian Divide separates the Missouri River watershed from those of the Oldman River ,

777-419: A period of record greater than fifty years is at Hermann, Missouri – 97.9 miles (157.6 km) upstream of the mouth of the Missouri – where the average annual flow was 87,520 cu ft/s (2,478 m /s) from 1897 to 2010. About 522,500 sq mi (1,353,000 km ), or 98.7% of the watershed, lies above Hermann. The highest annual mean was 181,800 cu ft/s (5,150 m /s) in 1993, and

888-655: A river in Maryland is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a location in Montgomery County, Maryland is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a location in Prince George's County , Maryland is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Headwaters The headwater of a river or stream is the point on each of its tributaries upstream from its mouth / estuary into

999-529: A river source specifically uses the most distant point (along watercourses from the river mouth ) in the drainage basin from which water runs year-around ( perennially ), or, alternatively, as the furthest point from which water could possibly flow ephemerally . The latter definition includes sometimes-dry channels and removes any possible definitions that would have the river source "move around" from month to month depending on precipitation or ground water levels. This definition, from geographer Andrew Johnston of

1110-413: A river that plays hide and seek with you today and tomorrow follows you around like a pet dog with a dynamite cracker tied to his tail. That river is the Missouri. With a drainage basin spanning 529,350 square miles (1,371,000 km ), the Missouri River's catchment encompasses nearly one-sixth of the area of the United States or just over five percent of the continent of North America. Comparable to

1221-604: A tributary of the Mississippi River . But it also follows the first definition above (along with virtually all other geographic authorities and publications) in using the combined Missouri—lower Mississippi length figure in lists of lengths of rivers around the world. Most rivers have numerous tributaries and change names often; it is customary to regard the longest tributary or stem as the source, regardless of what name that watercourse may carry on local maps and in local usage. This most commonly identified definition of

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1332-666: A tributary of the South Saskatchewan River , as well as the Souris , Sheyenne , and smaller tributaries of the Red River of the North . All of these streams are part of Canada's Nelson River drainage basin, which empties into Hudson Bay . There are also several large endorheic basins between the Missouri and Nelson watersheds in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan. The Minnesota and Des Moines Rivers, tributaries of

1443-419: A whole, the Missouri is thirteenth largest, after the Mississippi, Mackenzie , St. Lawrence, Ohio, Columbia, Niagara, Yukon, Detroit, St. Clair, Fraser , Slave , and Koksoak . As the Missouri drains a predominantly semi-arid region, its discharge is much lower and more variable than other North American rivers of comparable length. Before the construction of dams, the river flooded twice each year – once in

1554-497: Is approximately 13,287 acres (20.7 miles) in size and 18% impervious . The areas along Maryland's route 29, the intersection of Sandy Spring Road, and Columbia Pike in Burtonsville, Maryland have undergone extensive commercial development. Contrasting this, counties that border the watershed's southern-flowing direction (Montgomery and Prince George's), offer the least amount of developed areas. The Paint Branch tributary stream

1665-583: Is classified according to the state of Maryland’s Department of the Environment as Use I and Use III waters. Specifically, the lower partition of the Paint Branch stream is the Use I section, and the upper partition of the stream is Use III. A Use I stream has water contact recreations and the protection of nontidal warmwater aquatic life. In so many words, this means that leisure occurs in these areas, while

1776-426: Is considered a linear geographic feature, with only one mouth and one source. For an example, the Mississippi River and Missouri River sources are officially defined as follows: The verb "rise" can be used to express the general region of a river's source, and is often qualified with an adverbial expression of place. For example: The word "source", when applied to lakes rather than rivers or streams, refers to

1887-602: Is joined by the Gallatin a mile (1.6 km) downstream. It then passes through Canyon Ferry Lake , a reservoir west of the Big Belt Mountains . Issuing from the mountains near Cascade , the river flows northeast to the city of Great Falls , where it drops over the Great Falls of the Missouri , a series of five substantial waterfalls. It then winds east through a scenic region of canyons and badlands known as

1998-563: Is measured to the hydrologic source, regardless of naming convention. The main stem of the Kansas River, for example, is 148 miles (238 km) long. However, including the longest headwaters tributaries, the 453-mile (729 km) Republican River and the 156-mile (251 km) Arikaree River , brings the total length to 749 miles (1,205 km). Similar naming issues are encountered with the Platte River, whose longest tributary,

2109-464: Is sparsely populated. However, many northwestern cities, such as Billings, Montana , are among the fastest growing in the Missouri basin. With more than 170,000 square miles (440,000 km ) under the plow, the Missouri River watershed includes roughly one-fourth of all the agricultural land in the United States, providing more than a third of the country's wheat, flax, barley, and oats. However, only 11,000 square miles (28,000 km ) of farmland in

2220-782: The American Fur Company founded Fort Union at the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers. Fort Union gradually became the main headquarters for the fur trade in the upper Missouri basin. Fur trapping activities in the early 19th century encompassed nearly all of the Rocky Mountains on both the eastern and western slopes. Trappers of the Hudson's Bay Company, St. Louis Missouri Fur Company, American Fur Company, Rocky Mountain Fur Company , North West Company and other outfits worked thousands of streams in

2331-713: The Bighorn , in southern Montana. Although the business started small, it quickly grew into a thriving trade. Lisa's men started construction of Fort Raymond , which sat on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the Yellowstone and Bighorn, in the fall of 1807. The fort would serve primarily as a trading post for bartering with the Native Americans for furs. This method was unlike that of the Pacific Northwest fur trade, which involved trappers hired by

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2442-583: The Churn — although not without contention. When not listing river lengths, however, alternative definitions may be used. The Missouri River's source is named by some USGS and other federal and state agency sources, following Lewis and Clark 's naming convention, as the confluence of the Madison and Jefferson rivers, rather than the source of its longest tributary (the Jefferson). This contradicts

2553-576: The Columbia River system, which drains into the Pacific, had a similar latitude as the headwaters of the Missouri River, and it was widely believed that a connection or short portage existed between the two. However, Spain balked at the takeover, citing that they had never formally returned Louisiana to the French. Spanish authorities warned Lewis not to take the journey and forbade him from seeing

2664-543: The Illinoian ) glaciation diverted the Missouri River southeastward toward its present confluence with the Mississippi and caused it to integrate into a single river system that cuts across the regional slope. In western Montana, the Missouri River is thought to have once flowed north then east around the Bear Paw Mountains . Sapphires are found in some spots along the river in western Montana. Advances of

2775-515: The Mound builders , stayed along the Missouri, becoming the ancestors of the later Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains. Indigenous peoples of North America who have lived along the Missouri have historically had access to ample food, water, and shelter. Many migratory animals naturally inhabit the plains area. Before they were hunted by colonists and Native Americans, these animals, such as

2886-713: The Niobrara River and many smaller tributaries from the southwest. It then proceeds to form the boundary of South Dakota and Nebraska and is joined by the James River from the north. At Sioux City the Big Sioux River comes in from the north, after which the Missouri forms the Iowa –Nebraska boundary. It flows south to the city of Omaha where it receives its longest tributary, the Platte River , from

2997-551: The North Platte River , is more than twice as long as its mainstream. The Missouri's headwaters above Three Forks extend much farther upstream than the main stem. Measured to the farthest source at Brower's Spring, the Jefferson River is 298 miles (480 km) long. Thus measured to its highest headwaters, the Missouri River stretches for 2,639 miles (4,247 km). When combined with the lower Mississippi,

3108-544: The Osage and Gasconade Rivers from the south downstream of Jefferson City . The river then rounds the northern side of St. Louis to join the Mississippi River on the border between Missouri and Illinois . There is only one river with a personality, a sense of humor, and a woman's caprice; a river that goes traveling sidewise, that interferes in politics, rearranges geography, and dabbles in real estate;

3219-589: The Otoe , Missouria , Omaha , Ponca , Dakota , Lakota , Arikara , Hidatsa , Mandan , Assiniboine , Gros Ventres and Blackfeet . In this pre-colonial and early-colonial era, the Missouri river was used as a path of trade and transport, and the river and its tributaries often formed territorial boundaries. Most of the Indigenous peoples in the region at that time had semi-nomadic cultures, with many tribes maintaining different summer and winter camps. However,

3330-495: The Pacific Northwest region, provided a foundation for future explorers and emigrants. They also negotiated relations with numerous Native American tribes and wrote extensive reports on the climate, ecology and geology of the region. Many present-day names of geographic features in the upper Missouri basin originated from their expedition. As early as the 18th century, fur trappers entered the extreme northern basin of

3441-633: The Smithsonian Institution , is also used by the National Geographic Society when pinpointing the source of rivers such as the Amazon or Nile . A definition given by the state of Montana agrees, stating that a river source is never a confluence but is "in a location that is the farthest, along water miles, from where that river ends." Under this definition, neither a lake (excepting lakes with no inflows) nor

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3552-719: The Treaty of Paris , France ceded its Canadian possessions to the British, gaining Louisiana from the Spanish in return. Initially, the Spanish did not extensively explore the Missouri and let French traders continue their activities under license. However, this ended after news of incursions by trappers working for the Hudson's Bay Company in the upper Missouri River watershed was brought back following an expedition by Jacques D'Eglise in

3663-418: The buffalo , provided meat, clothing, and other everyday items; there were also great riparian areas in the river's floodplain that provided habitat for herbs and other staple foods. No written records from the tribes and peoples of the pre-European contact period exist because they did not yet use writing. According to the writings of early colonists, some of the major tribes along the Missouri River included

3774-538: The fluvial Arikaree Group were deposited between 29 and 19 million years ago. The Miocene -age Ogallala and the slightly younger Pliocene -age Broadwater Formation deposited atop the Arikaree Group, and are formed from material eroded off of the Rocky Mountains during a time of increased generation of topographic relief; these formations stretch from the Rocky Mountains nearly to the Iowa border and give

3885-726: The headwaters of the Missouri River first rose in the Laramide Orogeny , a mountain-building episode that occurred from around 70 to 45 million years ago (the end of the Mesozoic through the early Cenozoic ). This orogeny uplifted Cretaceous rocks along the western side of the Western Interior Seaway , a vast shallow sea that stretched from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, and deposited

3996-514: The main stem . The United States Geological Survey (USGS) states that a river's "length may be considered to be the distance from the mouth to the most distant headwater source (irrespective of stream name), or from the mouth to the headwaters of the stream commonly known as the source stream". As an example of the second definition above, the USGS at times considers the Missouri River as

4107-472: The "April Rise" or " Spring Fresh ", with the melting of snow on the plains of the watershed, and in the "June Rise", caused by snowmelt and summer rainstorms in the Rocky Mountains. The latter was far more destructive, with the river increasing to over ten times its normal discharge in some years. The Missouri's discharge is affected by over 17,000 reservoirs with an aggregate capacity of some 141 million acre-feet (174 km ). By providing flood control,

4218-582: The American West and a flood of settlers, farmers, ranchers, adventurers, hopefuls, financially bereft, and entrepreneurs took their place. The river roughly defined the American frontier in the 19th century, particularly downstream from Kansas City, where it takes a sharp eastern turn into the heart of the state of Missouri, an area known as the Boonslick . As first area settled by Europeans along

4329-539: The Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan . The watershed's largest city is Denver , Colorado, with a population of more than six hundred thousand. Denver is the main city of the Front Range Urban Corridor whose cities had a combined population of over four million in 2005, making it the largest metropolitan area in the Missouri River basin. Other major population centers – mostly in

4440-679: The French colonial authorities since 1706, when he deserted his post as commandant of Fort Detroit after poorly handling an attack by the Ottawa that resulted in thirty-one deaths. However, his reputation was enhanced in 1720 when the Pawnee – who had earlier been befriended by Bourgmont – massacred the Spanish Villasur expedition near present-day Columbus, Nebraska , on the Missouri River, temporarily ending Spanish encroachment on French Louisiana. Bourgmont established Fort Orleans ,

4551-593: The Great Plains much of their gentle but persistent eastward tilt, and also constitute a major aquifer. Immediately before the Quaternary Ice Age , the Missouri River was likely split into three segments: an upper portion that drained northwards into Hudson Bay, and middle and lower sections that flowed eastward down the regional slope. As the Earth plunged into the Ice Age, a pre-Illinoian (or possibly

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4662-546: The Gulf at the confluence of the Arkansas River with the Mississippi. In 1682, France expanded its territorial claims in North America to include land on the western side of the Mississippi River, which included the lower portion of the Missouri. However, the Missouri itself remained formally unexplored until Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont commanded an expedition in 1714 that reached at least as far as

4773-664: The Kansas River and its tributary the Republican River as well as pair of smaller Colorado streams, Big Sandy Creek and the South Platte River , to near Denver. The gold rushes precipitated the decline of the Bozeman Trail as a popular emigration route, as it passed through land held by often-hostile Native Americans. Safer paths were blazed to the Great Salt Lake near Corinne, Utah , during

4884-638: The MacKay and Evans map of the Missouri, although Lewis eventually managed to gain access to it. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began their famed expedition in 1804 with a party of thirty-three people in three boats. Although they became the first Europeans to travel the entire length of the Missouri and reach the Pacific Ocean via the Columbia, they found no trace of the Northwest Passage. The maps made by Lewis and Clark, especially those of

4995-842: The Missouri Breaks, receiving the Marias River from the west then widening into the Fort Peck Lake reservoir a few miles above the confluence with the Musselshell River . Farther on, the river passes through the Fort Peck Dam , and immediately downstream, the Milk River joins from the north. Flowing eastward through the plains of eastern Montana, the Missouri receives the Poplar River from

5106-766: The Missouri River in the hopes of finding populations of beaver and river otter , the sale of whose pelts drove the thriving North American fur trade . They came from many different places – some from the Canadian fur corporations at Hudson Bay, some from the Pacific Northwest ( see also : Maritime fur trade ), and some from the midwestern United States. Most did not stay in the area for long, as they failed to find significant resources. The first glowing reports of country rich with thousands of game animals came in 1806 when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark returned from their two-year expedition. Their journals described lands amply stocked with thousands of buffalo, beaver, and river otter; and also an abundant population of sea otters on

5217-426: The Missouri River, with most of the larger ones coming in as the river draws close to the mouth. Most rivers and streams in the Missouri River basin flow from west to east, following the incline of the Great Plains; however, some eastern tributaries such as the James, Big Sioux and Grand River systems flow from north to south. The Missouri's largest tributaries by runoff are the Yellowstone in Montana and Wyoming,

5328-449: The Missouri and its headwaters form part of the fourth-longest river system in the world , at 3,745 miles (6,027 km). By discharge , the Missouri is the ninth largest river of the United States, after the Mississippi, St. Lawrence , Ohio , Columbia, Niagara , Yukon , Detroit , and St. Clair . The latter two, however, are sometimes considered part of a strait between Lake Huron and Lake Erie . Among rivers of North America as

5439-595: The Missouri flowed in a new course along the south side of the Bearpaws, and the lower part of the Milk River tributary took over the original main channel. The Missouri's nickname, the "Big Muddy", was inspired by its enormous loads of sediment or silt – some of the largest of any North American river. In its pre-development state, the river transported some 175 to 320 million short tons (159 to 290 million metric tons) per year. The construction of dams and levees has drastically reduced this to 20 to 25 million short tons (18 to 23 million metric tons) in

5550-399: The Missouri to start. As the 1830s drew to a close, the fur industry slowly began to die as silk replaced beaver fur as a desirable clothing item. By this time, also, the beaver population of streams in the Rocky Mountains had been decimated by intense hunting. Furthermore, frequent Native American attacks on trading posts made it dangerous for employees of the fur companies. In some regions,

5661-418: The Missouri watershed as well as the neighboring Columbia, Colorado, Arkansas, and Saskatchewan river systems. During this period, the trappers, also called mountain men , blazed trails through the wilderness that would later form the paths pioneers and settlers would travel by into the West. Transport of the thousands of beaver pelts required ships, providing one of the first large motives for river transport on

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5772-404: The Pacific Northwest coast. In 1807, explorer Manuel Lisa organized an expedition which would lead to the explosive growth of the fur trade in the upper Missouri River country. Lisa and his crew traveled up the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, trading manufactured items in return for furs from local Native American tribes, and established a fort at the confluence of the Yellowstone and a tributary,

5883-401: The Pacific Ocean. In late June, Jolliet and Marquette became the first documented European discoverers of the Missouri River, which according to their journals was in full flood. "I never saw anything more terrific," Jolliet wrote, "a tangle of entire trees from the mouth of the Pekistanoui [Missouri] with such impetuosity that one could not attempt to cross it without great danger. The commotion

5994-513: The Paint Branch Trail. One is a 3-mile hard surface trail in Montgomery County that runs from Martin Luther King Jr. Recreational Park to Fairland Road with a trail extension in progress to take the trail to Old Columbia Pike. The other is part of the Anacostia Tributary Trail System in Prince Georges County and goes from Lake Artemesia to Cherry Hill Road. 38°58′43″N 76°55′00″W  /  38.978722°N 76.916641°W  / 38.978722; -76.916641 This article related to

6105-399: The Platte and Yellowstone Rivers. Elevations in the watershed vary widely, ranging from just over 400 feet (120 m) at the Missouri's mouth to the 14,293-foot (4,357 m) summit of Mount Lincoln in central Colorado. The river drops 8,626 feet (2,629 m) from Brower's Spring, the farthest source. Although the plains of the watershed have extremely little local vertical relief,

6216-417: The Platte in Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska, and the Kansas – Republican / Smoky Hill and Osage in Kansas and Missouri. Each of these tributaries drains an area greater than 50,000 square miles (130,000 km ) or has an average discharge greater than 5,000 cu ft/s (140 m /s). The Yellowstone River has the highest discharge, even though the Platte is longer and drains a larger area. In fact,

6327-428: The Platte provided an abundant and reliable source of water for the pioneers as they headed west. Covered wagons, popularly referred to as prairie schooners , provided the primary means of transport until the beginning of regular boat service on the river in the 1850s. During the 1860s, gold strikes in Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, and northern Utah attracted another wave of hopefuls to the region. Although some freight

6438-424: The Rockies in Montana, Idaho and western Wyoming. The Columbia, Missouri and Colorado River watersheds meet at Three Waters Mountain in Wyoming's Wind River Range . South of there, the Missouri basin is bordered on the west by the drainage of the Green River , a tributary of the Colorado, then on the south by the mainstem of the Colorado. Both the Colorado and Columbia Rivers flow to the Pacific Ocean. However,

6549-504: The Rockies provide the majority of the flow in the Missouri and its tributaries. The Missouri and many of its tributaries cross the Great Plains, flowing over or cutting into the Ogallala Group and older mid-Cenozoic sedimentary rocks. The lowest major Cenozoic unit, the White River Formation , was deposited between roughly 35 and 29 million years ago and consists of claystone , sandstone , limestone , and conglomerate . Channel sandstones and finer-grained overbank deposits of

6660-419: The Rocky Mountains in Wyoming and Colorado eastward through the Great Plains. An early expedition led by Robert Stuart from 1812 to 1813 proved the Platte impossible to navigate by the dugout canoes they used, let alone the large sidewheelers and sternwheelers that would later ply the Missouri in increasing numbers. One explorer remarked that the Platte was "too thick to drink, too thin to plow". Nevertheless,

6771-419: The United States during the 19th century. The growth of the fur trade in the early 19th century laid much of the groundwork as trappers explored the region and blazed trails. Pioneers headed west en masse beginning in the 1830s, first by covered wagon , then by the growing numbers of steamboats that entered service on the river. Conflict between settlers and Native Americans in the watershed led to some of

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6882-463: The Yellowstone River, which was called Roche Jaune ("Yellow Rock") by the French. Although MacKay and Evans failed to accomplish their original goal of reaching the Pacific, they did create the first accurate map of the upper Missouri River. In 1795, the young United States and Spain signed Pinckney's Treaty , which recognized American rights to navigate the Mississippi River and store goods for export in New Orleans. Three years later, Spain revoked

6993-462: The Yellowstone's flow is about 13,800 cu ft/s (390 m /s) – accounting for sixteen percent of total runoff in the Missouri basin and nearly double that of the Platte. On the other end of the scale is the tiny Roe River in Montana, which at 201 feet (61 m) long is one of the world's shortest rivers. The table on the right lists the ten longest tributaries of the Missouri, along with their respective catchment areas and flows. Length

7104-409: The annual flow of the Mississippi past St. Louis, and as much as 70 percent in certain droughts. In 1990, the Missouri River watershed was home to about 12 million people. This included the entire population of the U.S. state of Nebraska, parts of the U.S. states of Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming, and small southern portions of

7215-431: The basin is irrigated. A further 281,000 square miles (730,000 km ) of the basin is devoted to the raising of livestock, mainly cattle. Forested areas of the watershed, mostly second-growth , total about 43,700 square miles (113,000 km ). Urban areas, on the other hand, comprise less than 13,000 square miles (34,000 km ) of land. Most built-up areas are along the main stem and a few major tributaries, including

7326-456: The basin relied heavily on the bison as a food source, and their hides and bones served to create other household items. In time, the species came to benefit from the indigenous peoples' periodic controlled burnings of the grasslands surrounding the Missouri to clear out old and dead growth. The large bison population of the region gave rise to the term great bison belt , an area of rich annual grasslands that extended from Alaska to Mexico along

7437-410: The basin. As one of the continent's most significant river systems, the Missouri's drainage basin borders on many other major watersheds of the United States and Canada. The Continental Divide , running along the spine of the Rocky Mountains, forms most of the western border of the Missouri watershed. The Clark Fork and Snake River , both part of the Columbia River basin, drain the area west of

7548-412: The capital of North Dakota, where the Heart River joins from the west. It slows into the Lake Oahe reservoir just before the Cannonball River confluence. While it continues south, eventually reaching Oahe Dam in South Dakota , the Grand , Moreau and Cheyenne Rivers all join the Missouri from the west. The Missouri makes a bend to the southeast as it winds through the Great Plains, receiving

7659-530: The center of Native American wealth and trade lay along the Missouri River in the Dakotas region on its great bend south. A large cluster of walled Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara villages situated on bluffs and islands of the river was home to thousands, and later served as a market and trading post used by early French and British explorers and fur traders. Following the introduction of horses to Missouri River tribes, possibly from feral European-introduced populations, Natives' way of life changed dramatically. The use of

7770-401: The chiefs back to North America. Fort Orleans was either abandoned or its small contingent massacred by Native Americans in 1726. The French and Indian War erupted when territorial disputes between France and Great Britain in North America reached a head in 1754. By 1763, France's army in North America had been defeated by a combined British-American force and was forced to sue for peace. In

7881-403: The continental ice sheets diverted the river and its tributaries, causing them to pool up into large temporary lakes such as Glacial Lakes Great Falls , Musselshell and others. As the lakes rose, the water in them often spilled across adjacent local drainage divides, creating now-abandoned channels and coulees including the Shonkin Sag , 100 miles (160 km) long. When the glaciers retreated,

7992-544: The early 1790s. In 1795 the Spanish chartered the Company of Discoverers and Explorers of the Missouri, popularly referred to as the "Missouri Company", and offered a reward for the first person to reach the Pacific Ocean via the Missouri. In 1794 and 1795 expeditions led by Jean-Baptiste Truteau and Antoine Simon Lecuyer de la Jonchšre did not even make it as far north as the Mandan villages in central North Dakota. Arguably

8103-430: The eastern flank of the Continental Divide. However, after the arrival of Europeans in North America, both the bison and the Native Americans saw a rapid decline in population. Massive over-hunting for sport by colonists eliminated bison populations east of the Mississippi River by 1833 and reduced the numbers in the Missouri basin to a mere few hundred. Foreign diseases brought by settlers, such as smallpox , raged across

8214-486: The eastern terminus of the First transcontinental railroad via a ferry ride across the Missouri between Council Bluffs, Iowa , and Omaha. The Hannibal Bridge became the first bridge to cross the Missouri River in 1869, and its location was a major reason why Kansas City became the largest city on the river upstream from its mouth at St. Louis. True to the then-ideal of Manifest Destiny , over 500,000 people set out from

8325-651: The end of the Pleistocene . During the end of the last glacial period , large migration of humans were taking place, such as those via the Bering land bridge between the Americas and Eurasia. Over centuries, the Missouri River formed one of these main migration paths. Most migratory groups that passed through the area eventually settled in the Ohio Valley and the lower Mississippi River Valley, but many, including

8436-423: The first European settlement of any kind on the Missouri River, near present-day Brunswick, Missouri , in 1723. The following year Bourgmont led an expedition to enlist Comanche support against the Spanish, who continued to show interest in taking over the Missouri. In 1725 Bourgmont brought the chiefs of several Missouri River tribes to visit France. There he was raised to the rank of nobility and did not accompany

8547-404: The growth of fish and other wildlife is protected. A Use III water expands on this concept, by categorically facilitating the growth and propagation of the trout species. Thus, in the upper parts of the Paint Branch stream, naturally reproducing brown trout are one of the most significant aquatic species in the community. There are two trails along the Paint Branch stream which holistically make up

8658-525: The horse allowed them to travel greater distances, and thus facilitated hunting, communications, warfare, the Siouxoan genocide and expulsion of many tribes,and the abundance of trade. Once, tens of millions of American bison (commonly called buffalo), one of the keystone species of the Great Plains and the Ohio Valley, roamed the plains of the Missouri River basin. Most Native American nations in

8769-477: The industry continued well into the 1840s, but in others such as the Platte River valley, declines of the beaver population contributed to an earlier demise. The fur trade finally disappeared in the Great Plains around 1850, with the primary center of industry shifting to the Mississippi Valley and central Canada. Despite the demise of the once-prosperous trade, however, its legacy led to the opening of

8880-907: The lake's inflow . Missouri River The Missouri River is a river in the Central and Mountain West regions of the United States . The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Mountains of southwestern Montana , then flows east and south for 2,341 miles (3,767 km) before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis , Missouri . The river drains semi-arid watershed of more than 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 km ), which includes parts of ten U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. Although

8991-507: The land rises about 10 feet per mile (1.9 m/km) from east to west. The elevation is less than 500 feet (150 m) at the eastern border of the watershed, but is over 3,000 feet (910 m) above sea level in many places at the base of the Rockies. The Missouri's drainage basin has highly variable weather and rainfall patterns, Overall, the watershed is defined by a continental climate with warm, wet summers and harsh, cold winters. Most of

9102-561: The land, decimating Native American populations. Left without their primary source of sustenance, many of the remaining indigenous people were forced onto resettlement areas and reservations, often at gunpoint. In May 1673, the French-Canadian explorer Louis Jolliet and the French explorer Jacques Marquette left the settlement of St. Ignace on Lake Huron and traveled down the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers, aiming to reach

9213-634: The list of world's rivers), but instead use the source of the largest river flowing into the lake, the Kagera River . Likewise, the source of the Amazon River has been determined this way, even though the river changes names numerous times along its course. However, the source of the Thames in England is traditionally reckoned according to the named river Thames rather than its longer tributary,

9324-679: The lower Missouri valley is now a populous and highly productive agricultural and industrial region, heavy development has taken its toll on wildlife and fish populations as well as water quality. From the Rocky Mountains, three streams rise to form the headwaters of the Missouri River: The Missouri River officially starts at the confluence of the Jefferson and Madison in Missouri Headwaters State Park near Three Forks, Montana , and

9435-430: The lowest was 41,690 cu ft/s (1,181 m /s) in 2006. Extremes of the flow vary even further. The largest discharge ever recorded was over 750,000 cu ft/s (21,000 m /s) on July 31, 1993, during a historic flood . The lowest, a mere 602 cu ft/s (17.0 m /s) – caused by the formation of an ice dam – was measured on December 23, 1963. The Rocky Mountains of southwestern Montana at

9546-620: The melting of glacial ice . Headwater areas are the upstream areas of a watershed , as opposed to the outflow or discharge of a watershed. The river source is often but not always on or quite near the edge of the watershed, or watershed divide. For example, the source of the Colorado River is at the Continental Divide separating the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean watersheds of North America . A river

9657-529: The most common definition, which is, according to a US Army Corps of Engineers official on a USGS site, that "[geographers] generally follow the longest tributary to identify the source of rivers and streams." In the case of the Missouri River, this would have the source be well upstream from Lewis and Clark's confluence, "following the Jefferson River to the Beaverhead River to Red Rock River , then Red Rock Creek to Hell Roaring Creek ." Sometimes

9768-546: The most longstanding and violent of the American Indian Wars . During the 20th century, the Missouri River basin was extensively developed for irrigation, flood control, and the generation of hydroelectric power . Fifteen dams impound the main stem of the river, with hundreds more on tributaries. Meanders have been cut off and the river channelized to improve navigation, reducing its length by almost 200 miles (320 km) from pre-development times. Although

9879-534: The most successful of the Missouri Company expeditions was that of James MacKay and John Evans . The two set out along the Missouri, and established Fort Charles about 20 miles (32 km) south of present-day Sioux City as a winter camp in 1795. At the Mandan villages in North Dakota, they forcefully expelled several British traders, and while talking to the populace they pinpointed the location of

9990-436: The mouth of the Platte River. It is unclear exactly how far Bourgmont traveled beyond there; he described the blond-haired Mandans in his journals, so it is likely he reached as far as their villages in present-day North Dakota. Later that year, Bourgmont published The Route To Be Taken To Ascend The Missouri River , the first known document to use the name "Missouri River"; many of the names he gave to tributaries, mostly from

10101-442: The mouth, is 21,920 cu ft/s (621 m /s). This is from a drainage area of 186,400 sq mi (483,000 km ), or 35% of the total river basin. At Kansas City, 366.1 miles (589.2 km) from the mouth, the river's average flow is 55,400 cu ft/s (1,570 m /s). The river here drains about 484,100 sq mi (1,254,000 km ), representing about 91% of the entire basin. The lowermost gage with

10212-505: The native tribes that lived along them, are still in use today. The expedition's discoveries eventually found their way to cartographer Guillaume Delisle , who used the information to create a map of the lower Missouri. In 1718, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville requested that the French government bestow upon Bourgmont the Cross of St. Louis because of his "outstanding service to France". Bourgmont had in fact been in trouble with

10323-543: The north before crossing into North Dakota where the Yellowstone River , its greatest tributary by volume, joins from the southwest. At the confluence, the Yellowstone is actually the larger river. The Missouri then meanders east past Williston and into Lake Sakakawea , the reservoir formed by Garrison Dam . Below the dam the Missouri receives the Knife River from the west and flows south to Bismarck ,

10434-526: The one which produced the 1972 Black Hills flood through Rapid City, South Dakota . Winter temperatures in the northern and western portions of the basin typically drop to −20 °F (−28.9 °C) or lower every winter with extremes as low as −60 °F (−51.1 °C), while summer highs occasionally exceed 100 °F (37.8 °C) in all areas except the higher elevations of Montana, Wyoming and Colorado. Extreme maxima — almost all prior to 1960 — have exceeded 115 °F (46.1 °C) in all US states in

10545-467: The present day. Much of this sediment is derived from the river's floodplain , also called the meander belt; every time the river changed course, it would erode tons of soil and rocks from its banks. However, damming and channeling the river has kept it from reaching its natural sediment sources along most of its course. Reservoirs along the Missouri trap roughly 36.4 million short tons (33.0 million metric tons) of sediment each year. Despite this,

10656-424: The reservoirs dramatically reduce peak flows and increase low flows. Evaporation from reservoirs significantly reduces the river's runoff, causing an annual loss of over 3 million acre-feet (3.7 km ) from mainstem reservoirs alone. The United States Geological Survey operates fifty-one stream gauges along the Missouri River. The river's average discharge at Bismarck, 1,314.5 miles (2,115.5 km) from

10767-577: The river it was largely populated by slave-owning southerners following the Boone's Lick Road . The major trails for the opening of the American West all have their starting points on the river, including the California , Mormon , Oregon , and Santa Fe trails. The first westward leg of the Pony Express was a ferry across the Missouri at St. Joseph, Missouri . Similarly, most emigrants arrived at

10878-493: The river still transports more than half the total silt that empties into the Gulf of Mexico; the Mississippi River Delta , formed by sediment deposits at the mouth of the Mississippi, constitutes a majority of sediments carried by the Missouri. Archaeological evidence, especially in Missouri, suggests that human beings first inhabited the watershed of the Missouri River between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago at

10989-498: The river town of Independence, Missouri , to their various destinations in the American West from the 1830s to the 1860s. These people had many reasons to embark on this strenuous year-long journey – economic crisis, and later gold strikes including the California Gold Rush , for example. For most, the route took them up the Missouri to Omaha, Nebraska, where they would set out along the Platte River , which flows from

11100-453: The sediments that now underlie much of the drainage basin of the Missouri River. This Laramide uplift caused the sea to retreat and laid the framework for a vast drainage system of rivers flowing from the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains , the predecessor of the modern-day Mississippi watershed. The Laramide Orogeny is essential to modern Missouri River hydrology , as snow and ice melt from

11211-614: The size of the Canadian province of Quebec , the watershed encompasses most of the central Great Plains, stretching from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Mississippi River Valley in the east and from the southern extreme of western Canada to the border of the Arkansas River watershed. Compared with the Mississippi River above their confluence, the Missouri is twice as long and drains an area three times as large. The Missouri accounts for 45 percent of

11322-507: The source of the most remote tributary may be in an area that is more marsh -like, in which the "uppermost" or most remote section of the marsh would be the true source. For example, the source of the River Tees is marshland . The furthest stream is also often called the head stream. Headwaters are often small streams with cool waters because of shade and recently melted ice or snow. They may also be glacial headwaters, waters formed by

11433-519: The treaty and in 1800 secretly returned Louisiana to Napoleonic France in the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso . This transfer was so secret that the Spanish continued to administer the territory. In 1801, Spain restored rights to use the Mississippi and New Orleans to the United States. Fearing that the cutoffs could occur again, President Thomas Jefferson proposed to buy the port of New Orleans from France for $ 10 million. Instead, faced with

11544-533: The upper Mississippi, drain most of the area bordering the eastern side of the Missouri River basin. Finally, on the south, the Ozark Mountains and other low divides through central Missouri, Kansas and Colorado separate the Missouri watershed from those of the White River and Arkansas River, also tributaries of the Mississippi River. Over 95 significant tributaries and hundreds of smaller ones feed

11655-506: The various fur enterprises, namely Hudson's Bay . Fort Raymond was later replaced by Fort Lisa at the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone in North Dakota; a second fort also called Fort Lisa was built downstream on the Missouri River in Nebraska. In 1809 the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company was founded by Lisa in conjunction with William Clark and Pierre Choteau, among others. In 1828,

11766-442: The watershed receives an average of 8 to 10 inches (200 to 250 mm) of precipitation each year. However, the westernmost portions of the basin in the Rockies as well as southeastern regions in Missouri may receive as much as 40 inches (1,000 mm). The vast majority of precipitation occurs in summer in most of the lower and middle basin, although the upper basin is known for short-lived but intense summer thunderstorms such as

11877-447: The watershed's southeastern portion – include Omaha, Nebraska , north of the confluence of the Missouri and Platte Rivers; Kansas City, Missouri – Kansas City, Kansas , at the confluence of the Missouri with the Kansas River; and the St. Louis metropolitan area, south of the Missouri River just below the latter's mouth, on the Mississippi. In contrast, the northwestern part of the watershed

11988-544: The watershed, with most leading a nomadic lifestyle and dependent on enormous bison herds that roamed through the Great Plains . The first Europeans encountered the river in the late seventeenth century, and the region passed through Spanish and French hands before becoming part of the United States through the Louisiana Purchase . The Missouri River was one of the main routes for the westward expansion of

12099-535: The west. Downstream, it begins to define the border between the states of Nebraska and Missouri , then flows between the states of Missouri and Kansas . The Missouri swings east at Kansas City , where the Kansas River enters from the west, and so on into north-central Missouri. To the east of Kansas City, the Missouri receives, on the left side, the Grand River . It passes south of Columbia and receives

12210-675: Was hauled overland, most transport to and from the gold fields was done through the Missouri and Kansas Rivers, as well as the Snake River in western Wyoming and the Bear River in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. It is estimated that of the passengers and freight hauled from the Midwest to Montana, over 80 percent were transported by boat, a journey that took 150 days in the upstream direction. A route more directly west into Colorado lay along

12321-457: Was such that the water was made muddy by it and could not clear itself." They recorded Pekitanoui or Pekistanoui as the local name for the Missouri. However, the party never explored the Missouri beyond its mouth, nor did they linger in the area. In addition, they later learned that the Mississippi drained into the Gulf of Mexico and not the Pacific as they had originally presumed; the expedition turned back about 440 miles (710 km) short of

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