The Missouri River is the longest river in North America. 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. dried up. Evaporation from reservoirs significantly reduces the river's runoff, causing an annual loss of over 3 million acre feet (3.7 km3) from mainstem reservoirs alone. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the Missouri River has been extensively engineered for water transport purposes, and about 32 percent of the river now flows through artificially straightened channels. The flooding of lands along the Missouri River heavily impacted Native American groups whose reservations included fertile bottomlands and floodplains, especially in the arid Dakotas where it was some of the only good farmland they had. Fort Orleans was either abandoned or its small contingent massacred by Native Americans in 1726. It is longer than the Mississippi River. However, shipping traffic has since been far lower than expected – shipments of commodities including produce, manufactured items, lumber, and oil averaged only 683,000 tons (616,000 t) per year from 1994 to 2006. At the confluence, the Yellowstone is actually the larger river. Many present-day names of geographic features in the upper Missouri basin originated from their expedition. 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. They also negotiated relations with multiple Native American tribes and wrote extensive reports on the climate, ecology and geology of the region. Following the introduction of horses to Missouri River tribes, possibly from feral European-introduced populations, Natives' way of life changed dramatically. Although 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. The Missouri's largest tributaries by runoff are the Yellowstone in Montana and Wyoming, the Platte in Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska, and the Kansas–Republican/Smoky Hill and Osage in Kansas and Missouri. The Missouri's headwaters above Three Forks extend much farther upstream than the main stem. Both the Colorado and Columbia Rivers flow to the Pacific Ocean. It is formed by the confluence of the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin rivers in the Rocky Mountains area of southwestern Montana (Gallatin county), U.S., about 4,000 feet (1,200 metres) above sea level. Foreign diseases brought by settlers, such as smallpox, raged across the land, decimating Native American populations. The source of the river is situated near Harrison, Nebraska, and then it flows for 580 miles through South Dakota and Nebraska before finally draining into the Missouri River. We hope you and your family enjoy the NEW Britannica Kids. The 1944 act authorized the Pick–Sloan Missouri Basin Program (Pick–Sloan Plan), which was a composite of two widely varying proposals. Numerous dams and bank stabilization projects have been constructed to facilitate the conversion of 300,000 acres (1,200 km2) of Missouri River floodplain to agricultural land. Many migratory animals naturally inhabit the plains area. In 1949, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) began construction on the modern Canyon Ferry Dam to provide flood control to the Great Falls area. From the Rocky Mountains of Montana and Wyoming, three streams rise to form the headwaters of the Missouri River. The most notable of the MNRR's bird species are the threatened Piping Plover , endangered Interior Tern , and the magnificent American Bald Eagle. The Missouri River starts near Three Forks, Montana and ends near One explorer remarked that the Platte was "too thick to drink, too thin to plow". The Missouri basin suffered a series of catastrophic floods around the turn of the 20th century, most notably in 1844, 1881, and 1926–1927. The Missouri River was one of the main routes for the westward expansion of the United States during the 19th century. The Missouri is the world’s 15th-longest river. Reservoirs along the Missouri trap roughly 36.4 million short tons (33.0 Mt) of sediment each year. However, only 11,000 square miles (28,000 km2) of farmland in the basin is irrigated. Many of the students were interested in the life history of river fishes, particularly the prehistoric sturgeon, and learning more about our monitoring efforts on the Missouri River. In the early decades before the river's flow was controlled by man, its sketchy rises and falls and its massive amounts of sediment, which prevented a clear view of the bottom, wrecked some 300 vessels. Before they were slaughtered by colonists, these animals, such as 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. The latter was far more destructive, with the river increasing to over ten times its normal discharge in some years. This part of the river, designated a U.S. National Wild and Scenic River in 1976, flows within the Upper Missouri Breaks National Monument, a 375,000-acre (1,520 km2) preserve comprising steep cliffs, deep gorges, arid plains, badlands, archaeological sites, and whitewater rapids on the Missouri itself. In 1925, the USACE began a project to widen the river's navigation channel to 200 feet (61 m); two years later, they began dredging a deep-water channel from Kansas City to Sioux City. The Mississippi River is actually one of the longest rivers on a global scale, too. The Minnesota and Des Moines Rivers, tributaries of the upper Mississippi, drain most of the area bordering the eastern side of the Missouri River basin. The Continental Divide, running along the spine of the Rocky Mountains, forms most of the western border of the Missouri watershed. Choose a language from the menu above to view a computer-translated version of this page. Similarly, most emigrants arrived at the eastern terminus of the First Transcontinental Railroad via a ferry ride across the Missouri between Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Omaha. This is how 12 Missouri students ranging from 12-18 years old, spent their week with Missouri River Relief’s “Big River Experience” annual summer camp. Parts of other rivers in the basin are set aside for preservation and recreational use – notably the Niobrara National Scenic River, which is a 76-mile (122 km) protected stretch of the Niobrara River, one of the Missouri's longest tributaries. The Missouri flows eastward, across Montana, south of the border with Canada. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began their famed expedition in 1804 with a party of thirty-three people in three boats. 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. Urban areas, on the other hand, comprise less than 13,000 square miles (34,000 km2) of land. Although there are few designated trails, the whole preserve is open to hiking and camping. Because of its large sediment concentrations, the Missouri does not support many aquatic invertebrates. Historically, the thousands of square miles that comprised the floodplain of the Missouri River supported a wide range of plant and animal species. The Missouri then passes through Canyon Ferry Lake, a reservoir west of the Big Belt Mountains. As the 1830s drew to a close, the fur industry slowly began to die as silk replaced beaver fur as a desirable clothing item. Meanders have been cut and the river channelized to improve navigation, reducing its length by almost 200 miles (320 km) from pre-development times. These two streams then flow north and northwest into Montana. Between 1890 and 1940, five dams were built in the vicinity of Great Falls to generate power from the Great Falls of the Missouri, a chain of giant waterfalls formed by the river in its path through western Montana. However, the basin does support about 300 species of birds and 150 species of fish, some of which are endangered such as the pallid sturgeon. The failure of the USACE to consistently maintain the navigation channel has also hampered the industry. Despite the demise of the once-prosperous trade, however, its legacy led to the opening of the American West and a flood of settlers, farmers, ranchers, adventurers, hopefuls, financially bereft, and entrepreneurs took their place. Bourgmont established Fort Orleans, the first European settlement of any kind on the Missouri River, near present-day Brunswick, Missouri, in 1723. It slows into the Lake Oahe reservoir just before the Cannonball River confluence. The Missouri once carried a huge amount of soil all through its course. 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 the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. A small run-of-the river structure completed in 1898 near the present site of Canyon Ferry Dam became the second dam to be built on the Missouri. Mainstem power plants generate about 9.3 billion KWh annually – equal to a constant output of almost 1,100 megawatts. The Rocky Mountains of southwestern Montana at 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). The lowermost gage with 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 m3/s) from 1897 to 2010. The Missouri River flows for 2,315 miles (3,726 kilometers) through the central United States. The Missouri accounts for 45 percent of the annual flow of the Mississippi past St. Louis, and as much as 70 percent in certain droughts. This rock-filled timber crib dam generated seven and a half megawatts of electricity for Helena and the surrounding countryside. Arguably the most successful of the Missouri Company expeditions was that of James MacKay and John Evans. For most, the route took them up the Missouri to Omaha, Nebraska, where they would set out along the Platte River, which flows from the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming and Colorado eastwards through the Great Plains. The Clark Fork and Snake River, both part of the Columbia River basin, drain the area west of the Rockies in Montana, Idaho and western Wyoming. The fighting resulted in a complete Native American victory. Indigenous peoples of North America who have lived along the Missouri have historically had access to ample food, water, and shelter. This transfer was so secret that the Spanish continued to administer the territory. Channel sandstones and finer-grained overbank deposits of the fluvial Arikaree Group were deposited between 29 and 19 million years ago. There are no known endemic species within the region. Along with nearly 100 smaller dams on tributaries, namely the Bighorn, Platte, Kansas, and Osage Rivers, the system provides irrigation water to nearly 7,500 sq mi (19,000 km2) of land. The Bootheel in the extreme southeast was settled by planters from the South and was appended to Missouri at the time of statehood through the great influence of one planter; it is the centre of Missouri’s historic cotton culture. The first westward leg of the Pony Express was a ferry across the Missouri at St. Joseph, Missouri. About forty-five steamboat wrecks are scattered along these reaches of the river. The Lower Missouri River is the 840 miles (1,350 km) of river below Gavins Point until it meets the Mississippi just above St. Louis. Length is measured to the hydrologic source, regardless of naming convention. The source of the Missouri River is in the Rocky Mountains, in the state of Montana. Branson, Missouri is famous for its country music shows. Length & Location. 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. Missouri River, longest tributary of the Mississippi River and second longest river in North America. Private and public landowner efforts to conserve streams, ponds, and lakes benefit otters. 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. The Missouri swings east at Kansas City, where the Kansas River enters from the west, and so on into north-central Missouri. In 1868, the Treaty of Fort Laramie was signed, which "guaranteed" the use of the Black Hills, Powder River Country and other regions surrounding the northern Missouri River to Native Americans without white intervention. These consequences were pronounced in North Dakota's Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, where 150,000 acres (61,000 ha) of land was taken by the construction of Garrison Dam. Left without their primary source of sustenance, many of the remaining indigenous people were forced onto resettlement areas and reservations, often at gunpoint. 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. The USACE was blamed for failing to maintain the channel to the minimum depth. This guide was created by Missouri River Relief, a nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting people to the Missouri River. Also known as the Show Me State and the Cave State, Missouri is an incredible place! 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. In 1803, Jefferson instructed Meriwether Lewis to explore the Missouri and search for a water route to the Pacific Ocean. "[The Missouri's temperament was] uncertain as the actions of a jury or the state of a woman's mind. 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. The growth of the fur trade in the early 1800s laid much of the groundwork as trappers explored the region and blazed trails. The table on the right lists the ten longest tributaries of the Missouri, along with their respective catchment areas and flows. By providing flood control, the reservoirs dramatically reduce peak flows and increase low flows. 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. Together the Missouri and the Mississippi form a river system that is 3,710 miles (5,971 kilometers) long. The Mississippi River can be divided into three sections: the Upper Mississippi, which is from its headwaters to the confluence with the Missouri River; the Middle Mississippi, which is downriver from the Missouri River to the Ohio River; and the Lower Mississippi, which flows from … The Lower Missouri River has no hydroelectric dams or locks but it has a plethora of wing dams that enable barge traffic by directing the flow of the river into a 200-foot-wide (61 m), 12-foot-deep (3.7 m) channel. Fertilizer runoff, which causes elevated levels of nitrogen and other nutrients, is a major problem along the Missouri River, especially in Iowa and Missouri. 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. Conflicts between natives and settlers over the opening of the Bozeman Trail in the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana led to Red Cloud's War, in which the Lakota and Cheyenne fought against the U.S. Army. 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. The commotion was such that the water was made muddy by it and could not clear itself." When the settlers intruded onto the lands, they were attacked by Native Americans. Winter temperatures in Montana, Wyoming and Colorado may drop as low as −60 °F (−51 °C), while summer highs in Kansas and Missouri have reached 120 °F (49 °C) at times. Many of the run-of-the-river dams on the Missouri (marked in yellow) form very small impoundments which may or may not have been given names; those unnamed are left blank. From Springfield, it flows west and then south to Galena.Shortly after Galena it enters Table Rock Lake. The trail, which spans through eleven U.S. states, is maintained by various federal and state government agencies; it passes through some 100 historic sites, notably archaeological locations including the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site. The Missouri National Recreational River consists of portions of the Missouri downstream from Fort Randall and Gavins Point Dams that total 98 miles (158 km). Development of the floodplain has led to increasing amounts of people and infrastructure within areas at high risk of inundation. Only three rivers in the world are longer. 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; 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. Almost all of the barge traffic on the Missouri River ships sand and gravel dredged from the lower 500 miles (800 km) of the river; the remaining portion of the shipping channel now sees little to no use by commercial vessels. In western Montana, the Missouri River is thought to have once flowed north then east around the Bear Paw Mountains. No written records from the tribes and peoples of the pre-European contact period exist because they did not yet use writing. Part of the reason is that irrigated land along the Missouri has only been developed to a fraction of its potential. River otters live in streams, rivers, and lakes usually bordered by forest. 7) Length of Missouri River is 3767 km and the catchment area is 1,300,000 square km. To the north, the much lower Laurentian Divide separates the Missouri River watershed from those of the Oldman River, a tributary of the South Saskatchewan River, as well as the Souris, Sheyenne, and smaller tributaries of the Red River of the North. 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. According to the writings of early colonists, some of the major tribes along the Missouri River included the Otoe, Missouria, Omaha, Ponca, Brulé, Lakota, Arikara, Hidatsa, Mandan, Assiniboine, Gros Ventres and Blackfeet. The longest river in the USA is the Missouri River, stretching around 2,340 miles (3,770 km) in length (slightly longer than the Mississippi River). However, a large endorheic drainage called the Great Divide Basin exists between the Missouri and Green watersheds in western Wyoming. The fort would serve primarily as a trading post for bartering with the Native Americans for furs. Missouri - Missouri - Settlement patterns: Missouri’s regions reflect the ethnic, religious, and political persuasions of the residents. The Missouri makes a bend to the southeast as it winds through the Great Plains, receiving the Niobrara River and many smaller tributaries from the southwest. Although the business started small, it quickly grew into a thriving trade. Flowing eastwards through the plains of eastern Montana, the Missouri receives the Poplar River from the north before crossing into North Dakota where the Yellowstone River, its greatest tributary by volume, joins from the southwest. The Nile … Expanded their holdings into the Jefferson River is the longest River in the state a. 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