AMERICAN HISTORY

The Mighty Missouri River

A tributary of the Mississippi River, the Missouri River, at 2,540 miles in length, is the longest river in the United States. The river played an important part in the explorations and expansion of the American West. The headwaters of the Missouri River are in the Rocky Mountains near Three Forks, Montana at an elevation of 4,045 feet, beginning at the confluence of the Jefferson and Madison Rivers, and joined about ½  mile down stream by the Gallatin River. It flows from Montana southeast through the Missouri River Basin through North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska into Missouri, where it meets up with the Mississippi River north of St. Louis.

Early in 1803, the United States began negotiations to buy the port of New Orleans from France and wound up with all of the land between the Mississippi and the Missouri River's headwaters, in what is known as the Louisiana Purchase.

The Missouri River from the vicinity of "Old Baldy" near Lynch, Nebraska photo by Linda Gordon Rokosz, courtesy National Park Service.

But, long before Lewis and Clark made their famous explorations, early trappers and traders were following the Missouri River. The first Europeans to see the river were the French explorers Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette. A misconception of the naming of the river and the state of Missouri comes from Father Jacques Marquette calling the river "Pekitanoui" meaning "muddy," in May, 1673. In actuality, the river and the state were named after the Siouan Indian tribe whose Illinois name, Ouemessourita, means "those who have dugout canoes" Over the years, the river has also been called the Big River, Big Muddy, Emasulia sipiwi, Eomitai, Katapan Mene Shoska, Le Riviere des Missouri, Mini Sose, Missoury River, Ni-sho-dse, Nudarcha, Rio Misuri, Riviere de Pekitanoni, Riviere de Saint Philippe, Le Missouri, Le Riviere des Osages, Missures Flu, Miz-zou-rye River, Niutaci, Pekitanoui, River of the West, Yellow River.

French explorers used canoes and dugouts to travel up the Missouri River, courtesy National Park Service

For the next several decades the Missouri River remained unexplored and uncharted until Étienne de Veniard and Sieur de Bourgmont began to travel upstream, writing descriptions in 1713 and 1714. Bourgmont was the first to use the name "Missouri" to refer to the river and he and Étienne de Veniard would later establish the first fort on the Missouri River in 1723. Fort Orleans was built somewhere around the mouth of the Grand River near Brunswick, Missouri and was named for the Duke of Orléans.

It is unclear how far up the Missouri River Bourgmont traveled, but he was also the first European discoverer of the Platte River. The Spanish took over the Missouri River in the 1763 Treaty of Paris that ended the French and Indian War. However, they did not extensively explore the river and continued to allow French fur traders to work along the waterway.

The most significant expedition before Lewis and Clark was the MacKay and Evans Expedition of 1795-1797. James MacKay and John Evans were hired by the Spanish to search a route to the Pacific Ocean and to tell the British to leave the upper Missouri River area. McKay and Evans created a detailed map of the upper Missouri that would later be used by Lewis and Clark.

Later, the Missouri River became the jumping off point for all of the major trails that opened the American West, including the California, Mormon, Oregon, and Santa Fe Trails, as well as the Pony Express at St. Joseph, Missouri. The first bridge built across the Mighty Missouri was the Hannibal Bridge in Kansas City in 1869. Soon, paddle steamers began to move up the river, helping to facilitate settlement in the Dakotas and Montana. The northernmost navigable point on the Missouri before extensive navigation improvements was at Fort Benton, Montana.

Over the next century, numerous dams, dikes and levees were built along the river for flood control and today, 35% of the river is impounded. In fact, the only significant stretch of free-flowing river today is at the Missouri National Recreational River, a 100 mile National Park that runs between Gavins Point Dam and Ponca State Park, Nebraska along the Nebraska-South Dakota border. The park is among the last unspoiled stretches of the Missouri River, and exhibits the islands, bars, chutes and snags that once characterized the "Mighty Mo." It also preserves the historic ruins of Fort Randall; Spirit Mound, and important cultural landmark to the Native Americans; and the Meridian Bridge, an engineering marvel of the 1920s.

Contact Information:

Missouri National Recreational River

P. O. Box 591
O'Neill, Nebraska  68763
402-667-2550

© Kathy Weiser/Legends of America, October, 2009

Also See:

Corps of Discovery - The Lewis & Clark Expedition

The Frontier In History

The Louisiana Purchase

Overland Trails of the American West

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The steamboat North Alabama sank at the mouth of the Vermillon River on the Upper Missouri in 1870. The ruins

 of the ship are located between Yankton and Vermillion,

South Dakota. Photo by Dugan Smith, courtesy National

 Park Service.

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