The Missouri River was one of the main routes for the westward expansion of the United States during the 19th century.
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The Missouri River was one of the main routes for the westward expansion of the United States during the 19th century.
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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.
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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, tributaries of the Mississippi River.
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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.
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In western Montana, the Missouri River is thought to have once flowed north then east around the Bear Paw Mountains.
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Indigenous peoples of North America who have lived along the Missouri have historically had access to ample food, water, and shelter.
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However, the Missouri itself remained formally unexplored until Etienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont commanded an expedition in 1714 that reached at least as far as the mouth of the Platte River.
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However, this ended after news of incursions by trappers working for the Hudson's Bay Company in the upper The Missouri River watershed was brought back following an expedition by Jacques D'Eglise in the early 1790s.
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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.
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The 1944 act authorized the Pick–Sloan The Missouri Basin Program, which was a composite of two widely varying proposals.
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Boat travel on the Missouri began with the wood-framed canoes and bull boats that Native Americans used for thousands of years before the colonization of the Great Plains introduced larger craft to the river.
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The first steamboat on the Missouri was the Independence, which started running between St Louis and Keytesville, Missouri around 1819.
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However, the Missouri has often resisted the efforts of the USACE to control its depth.
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The Upper The Missouri River is north of Gavins Point Dam, the last hydroelectric dam of fifteen on the river, just upstream from Sioux City, Iowa.
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The Lower The Missouri River is the 840 miles of river below Gavins Point until it meets the Mississippi just above St Louis.
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Tonnage of goods shipped by barges on the Missouri River has seen a serious decline from the 1960s to the present.
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Part of the reason is that irrigated land along the Missouri has only been developed to a fraction of its potential.
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World Wide Fund For Nature divides the Missouri River watershed into three freshwater ecoregions: the Upper Missouri, Lower Missouri and Central Prairie.
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The Upper The Missouri, roughly encompassing the area within Montana, Wyoming, southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, and North Dakota, comprises mainly semiarid shrub-steppe grasslands with sparse biodiversity because of Ice Age glaciations.
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Plant life is more diverse in the Middle The Missouri, which is home to about twice as many animal species.
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Channelization of the lower The Missouri waters has made the river narrower, deeper and less accessible to riparian flora and fauna.
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The report found that a better understanding of sediment processes in the Missouri River, including the creation of a "sediment budget" – an accounting of sediment transport, erosion, and deposition volumes for the length of the Missouri River – would provide a foundation for projects to improve water quality standards and protect endangered species.
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Several sections of the Missouri River were added to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System from Fort Benton to Robinson Bridge, Gavins Point Dam to Ponca State Park and Fort Randall Dam to Lewis and Clark Lake.
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