Missouri River

River, central U.S. The longest tributary of the Mississippi River, it rises in the Rocky Mountains of southwestern Montana.

It flows east to central North Dakota and south across South Dakota, forming sections of the South Dakota–Nebraska boundary, the Nebraska-Iowa boundary, the Nebraska-Missouri boundary, and the Kansas-Missouri boundary. It then meanders east across central Missouri to join the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, after a total course of 2,315 mi (3,726 km). It has been nicknamed "Big Muddy" because of the amount of silt that it carries. The first Europeans to visit its mouth were French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet in 1673. The first exploration of the river from its mouth to its headwaters was made in 1804–05 by the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Since the mid 20th century, programs have been instituted along its banks to check its turbulent flooding and to harness it for irrigation.

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▪ river, United States

 longest tributary of the Mississippi River, formed by the confluence of the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin rivers in the Rocky Mountain area of southwestern Montana (Gallatin county), U.S., about 4,000 feet (1,200 m) above sea level. The Missouri flows eastward to central North Dakota, where it turns southward across South Dakota to form a section of the South Dakota–Nebraska boundary, the Nebraska–Iowa boundary, the Nebraska–Missouri boundary, and the northern section of the Kansas–Missouri boundary. Then it meanders eastward across central Missouri to join the Mississippi River, about 10 miles (16 km) north of St. Louis, after traveling a course of 2,315 miles (3,726 km).

      Its drainage basin occupies about 529,400 square miles (1,371,100 square km) of the Great Plains, of which 2,550 square miles (16,840 square km) are in Canada. Elevations within its basin are extreme: from 14,000 feet (4,300 m) above sea level in the Rockies near the Continental Divide to 400 feet (120 m) where it joins the Mississippi. The flow of the Missouri and of most of its tributaries is exceedingly varied—the minimum flow being 4,200 cubic feet (120 cubic m) per second and the maximum 900,000 cubic feet (25,500 cubic m) per second. With unprotected slopes and with such violent fluctuations in flow, erosion and silting are major problems.

      Chief tributaries include the Cheyenne, Kansas, Niobrara, Osage, Platte, and Yellowstone rivers, flowing in on the south and west sides, and the James and Milk rivers, entering from the north. Other tributaries are the Bad, Blackwater, Cannonball, Gasconade, Grand, Heart, Judith, Knife, Little Missouri, Moreau, Musselshell, and White rivers, which enter from the south and west. The Big Sioux, the Chariton, Little Platte, Marias, Sun, and Teton rivers enter from the north and east.

      The Missouri was named Peki-tan-oui on some early French maps and, later, Oumessourit; it has been nicknamed “Big Muddy” because of the amount of solid matter it carries in suspension. Its mouth was discovered in 1673 by the French explorers Jacques Marquette (Marquette, Jacques) and Louis Jolliet (Jolliet, Louis) while they were canoeing down the Mississippi River. In the early 1700s French fur traders began to navigate upstream. The first exploration of the river from its mouth to its headwaters was made in 1804–05 by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. For many years commerce on the river was restricted to the fur trade, and the river was little used by the earliest American settlers moving west. The American Fur Company began to use steamers on the river in 1830. Steamboat traffic on the river reached its height in 1858 but began to decline in the following year with the completion of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railway to St. Joseph, Mo.

      For the first 150 years after settlement along the river, little was done to develop the Missouri as a useful waterway or as a source of irrigation and power. In 1944 the U.S. Congress authorized a comprehensive program for flood control and water-resource development in the Missouri River basin. It envisioned a system of more than 100 dams and reservoirs on the Missouri and certain of its tributaries. Local flood protection, involving levees and bank stabilization, and a deeper river channel were provided on the Missouri itself from Sioux City, Iowa, to the Mississippi, a distance of 760 miles (1,220 km). By the time an even more ambitious plan, the Missouri River Basin program, or simply the Pick-Sloan program, was adopted in the 1950s, channel maintenance had enabled commercial barge lines to begin operating on the Missouri in 1953. The major dams (dam) built on the Missouri were Fort Peck (Fort Peck Dam) (near Glasgow, Mont.), Garrison (N.D.), and Gavin's Point, Fort Randall, and Oahe (S.D.). The Fort Peck Dam is one of the largest earthfill dams in the world. The entire system of dams and reservoirs has greatly reduced flooding on the Missouri and provides water to irrigate millions of acres of cropland along the main river and its tributaries. Hydroelectric installations along the river generate electricity for many communities along the river's upper course.

      The chief cities along the Missouri are Great Falls, Mont.; Williston and Bismarck, N.D.; Pierre, S.D.; Sioux City and Council Bluffs, Iowa; Omaha and Nebraska City, Neb.; Atchison, Leavenworth, and Kansas City, Kan.; and St. Joseph, Kansas City, Columbia, Jefferson City, and St. Charles, Mo.

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