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The Missouri River is the longest river in North America. Rising in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana, the Missouri flows east and south for 2,341 miles (3,767 km) before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri. The river drains a sparsely populated, semi-arid watershed of more than 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 km2), which includes parts of ten U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. Although nominally considered a tributary of the Mississippi, the Missouri River above the confluence is much longer and carries a comparable volume of water. When combined with the lower Mississippi River, it forms the world's fourth longest river system.
The Jefferson River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 83 miles (134 km) long, in the U.S. state of Montana. The Jefferson River and the Madison River form the official beginning of the Missouri at Missouri Headwaters State Park near Three Forks. It is joined 0.6 miles (1.0 km) downstream (northeast) by the Gallatin.
The Marias River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 210 mi (338 km) long, in the U.S. state of Montana. It is formed in Glacier County, in northwestern Montana, by the confluence of the Cut Bank Creek and the Two Medicine River. It flows east, through Lake Elwell, formed by the Tiber Dam, then southeast, receiving the Teton River at Loma, 2 mi. (3.2 km) above its confluence with the Missouri.
The Sun River is a tributary of the Missouri River in the Great Plains, approximately 130 mi (209 km) long, in Montana in the United States.
The Clark Fork, or the Clark Fork of the Columbia River, is a river in the U.S. states of Montana and Idaho, approximately 310 miles (500 km) long. The largest river by volume in Montana, it drains an extensive region of the Rocky Mountains in western Montana and northern Idaho in the watershed of the Columbia River. The river flows northwest through a long valley at the base of the Cabinet Mountains and empties into Lake Pend Oreille in the Idaho Panhandle. The Pend Oreille River in Idaho, Washington, and British Columbia, Canada which drains the lake to the Columbia in Washington, is sometimes included as part of the Clark Fork, giving it a total length of 479 miles (771 km), with a drainage area of 25,820 square miles (66,900 km2). In its upper 20 miles (32 km) in Montana near Butte, it is known as Silver Bow Creek. Interstate 90 follows much of the upper course of the river from Butte to northwest of Missoula. The highest point within the river's watershed is Mount Evans at 10,641 feet (3,243 m) in Deer Lodge County, Montana along the Continental Divide.
This is the timeline of the Lewis and Clark Expedition through the American West, 1803-1806.
The Pick–Sloan Missouri Basin Program, formerly called the Missouri River Basin Project, was initially authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1944, which approved the plan for the conservation, control, and use of water resources in the Missouri River Basin.
The Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge is a National Wildlife Refuge located in the U.S. state of Montana. The refuge surrounds Fort Peck Reservoir and is 915,814 acres (3,706.17 km2) in size. It is the second-largest National Wildlife Refuge in the lower 48 states of the United States, and the largest in Montana. Created in 1936, it was originally called the Fort Peck Game Range. It was renamed in 1963 after Montana artist Charles M. Russell, a famous painter of the American West. In 1976, the "range" was made a "refuge".
The Great Falls of the Missouri River are a series of waterfalls on the upper Missouri River in north-central Montana in the United States. From upstream to downstream, the five falls along a 10-mile (16 km) segment of the river are:
The westslope cutthroat trout, also known as the black-spotted trout, common cutthroat trout and red-throated trout is a subspecies of the cutthroat trout and is a freshwater fish in the salmon family of order Salmoniformes. The cutthroat is the Montana state fish. This subspecies is a species of concern in its Montana and British Columbia ranges and is considered threatened in its native range in Alberta.
Rainbow Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Missouri River, 29 feet (8.8 m) high and 1,055 feet (322 m) long, located six miles northeast of Great Falls in the U.S. state of Montana. The dam is named for the downstream Rainbow Falls, a 45 ft (14 m) waterfall that is the third of the five Great Falls of the Missouri. Built in 1910, the dam furnishes water to an eight-unit hydroelectric plant with a capacity of 36 megawatts. As the dam's power plant is located over a half-mile downstream, the flow of water over Rainbow Falls and downstream Crooked Falls is significantly reduced during the dry season. The water from the penstocks re-enters the river a few hundred yards east of Crooked Falls. Montana Power Company acquired the dam when it was founded in 1912, PPL Corporation purchased it in 1997 and sold it to NorthWestern Corporation in 2014.
Rainbow Falls is a waterfall on the Missouri River in Great Falls, Montana, just upstream from Crooked Falls and downstream from Colter Falls and Rainbow Dam. It is 47 feet (14m) high and 1,320 feet (402.3m) wide. The waterfall is part of the five Great Falls of the Missouri. The river spills over a sheer ledge of sandstone in the Kootenai Formation, forming the falls. The falls used to flow with a great deal of force year-round. In 1914 the river shortly upstream was dammed for hydroelectric power by the Rainbow Dam, which forms a run-of-the-river reservoir. As a result, the falls can almost totally dry up in the summer with only a few narrow strips of water trickling down its face. A railroad bridge crosses the river directly above the falls.
Ryan Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Missouri River, 10 miles (16 km) downstream from the city of Great Falls in the U.S. state of Montana. The dam is 1,336 feet (407 m) long and 61 feet (19 m) high; its reservoir is 7 miles (11 km) long and has a storage capacity of 5,000 acre feet (6,200,000 m3). It is a run-of-river dam. The dam is built on the largest of the five Great Falls of the Missouri, the "Big Falls", also sometimes called "Great Falls". Since 1915, the six-unit powerhouse on the left side of the dam has occupied a significant portion of the 87-foot (27 m) high waterfall.
Holter Dam is a hydroelectric straight gravity dam on the Missouri River about 45 miles (72 km) northeast of Helena, Montana, in the United States. The dam, which was built between 1908 and 1918, is 1,364 feet (416 m) long and 124 feet (38 m) high. The reservoir formed by the dam, Holter Lake is 25 miles (40 km) long and has a storage capacity of 243,000 acre feet (300,000,000 m3) of water when full. The dam is a "run-of-the-river" dam because it can generate electricity without needing to store additional water supplies behind the dam.
Hauser Dam is a hydroelectric straight gravity dam on the Missouri River about 14 miles (23 km) northeast of Helena, Montana, in the United States. The original dam, built between 1905 and 1907, failed in 1908 and caused severe flooding and damage downstream. A second dam was built on the site in 1908 and opened in 1911 and comprises the present structure. The current Hauser Dam is 700 feet (210 m) long and 80 feet (24 m) high. The reservoir formed by the dam, Hauser Lake is 25 miles (40 km) long, has a surface area of 3,800 acres (1,500 ha), and has a storage capacity of 98,000 acre feet (121,000,000 m3) of water when full.
Black Eagle Dam is a hydroelectric gravity weir dam located on the Missouri River in the city of Great Falls, Montana. The first dam on the site, built and opened in 1890, was a timber-and-rock crib dam. This structure was the first hydroelectric dam built in Montana and the first built on the Missouri River. The dam helped give the city of Great Falls the nickname "The Electric City." A second dam, built of concrete in 1926 and opened in 1927, replaced the first dam, which was not removed and lies submerged in the reservoir. Almost unchanged since 1926, the dam is 782 feet (238 m) long and 34.5 feet (10.5 m) high, and its powerhouse contains three turbines capable of generating seven megawatts (MW) of power each. The maximum power output of the dam is 18 MW. Montana Power Company built the second dam, PPL Corporation purchased it in 1997 and sold it to NorthWestern Corporation in 2014. The reservoir behind the dam has no official name, but was called the Long Pool for many years. The reservoir is about 2 miles (3.2 km) long, and has a storage capacity of 1,710 acre feet (2,110,000 m3) to 1,820 acre feet (2,240,000 m3) of water.
Morony Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam located on the Missouri River in Cascade County, Montana. The dam is 883 feet (269 m) long and 94 feet (29 m) high, and generates 48 megawatts (MW) of power.
Big Falls is a major waterfall located on the Missouri River in western Montana in the United States. It is the lowermost and largest of the Great Falls of the Missouri, at 87 feet (27 m) high and up to 900 feet (270 m) wide at peak flow. Although the falls used to flow powerfully year-round, most of the water is now diverted to the 60 megawatt hydroelectric plant of upstream Ryan Dam, reducing it to a trickle in the summer months. Grand Falls was named by William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1805.
Tower Rock State Park is a state park near the community of Cascade in the U.S. state of Montana in the United States. The centerpiece of the park is Tower Rock, a 424-foot (129 m)-high rock formation which marks the entrance to the Missouri River Canyon in the Adel Mountains Volcanic Field. It was well known to Native Americans, and considered a sacred place by the Piegan Blackfeet. Tower Rock received its current name when Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition visited the site in 1805. Railroad and highway development in the late 1800s and 1900s skirted Tower Rock, but the landform itself remained pristine. The 87.2 acres (0.353 km2) encompassing Tower Rock was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 18, 2002. The 140-acre (0.57 km2) Tower Rock State Park was created around the National Historic Site in 2004.
References
- ↑ "MSP_Brochure_2014Web.pdf". Montana State Parks. 2014. Archived from the original on 2017-11-29. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
Giant Springs flows at 156 million gallons a day.
- 1 2 Paul Russell Cutright (2003). Lewis and Clark: Pioneering Naturalists. U of Nebraska Press. pp. 156–158. ISBN 0-8032-6434-8.
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