The North and South Platte Rivers

American River Trails

The Platte River originates in the state of Nebraska and is about 310 miles - 500 km - long. Measured to its farthest source via its tributary the North Platte, it flows for over 1,050 miles - 1,690 km. The Platte is a tributary of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.

River Valley Trails played an important role in the westward expansion of the United States, providing the route for several major emigrant trails, including the Oregon, California, Mormon and Bozeman Trails. The French were the first Europeans to reach the Platte. At Casper, Wyoming the trails left the North Platte valley and followed the Sweetwater River valley and other river valleys going further west.

The North Platte River is approximately 716 miles - 1,152 km – long, across Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska. It is navigable over most of its length at high water by canoes, kayaks and rafts. In Colorado and Wyoming, the river is narrower and much swifter flowing than it is in Nebraska, where it becomes a slow, shallow stream. The upper reaches of the river in the Rockies in Colorado and Wyoming are popular for recreation rafting and fishing.

Casper Wyoming was established in 1860. Near what is now Casper was the location of several ferries that offered passage across the North Platte River during the summer Trail season starting about 1847. The wagon trails following the south side of the Platte/North Platte River ferried or waded in low water years across the South Platte River in several places to stay on the south side of the North Platte River where the trails were located. Those who went to Denver followed the South Platte River trail into Colorado. Historically, the North Platte River used to be up to a mile wide (1.6 km) in many places as evidenced by the old streambed and written records.

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Your anchor locations when visiting the North and South Platte Rivers include Denver and Wyoming

The South Platte River is one of the two principal tributaries of the Platte River located in the eastern flank of the Colorado Rockies, Nebraska and southeastern Wyoming near Cheyenne. The river forms southwest of Denver in the South Park grassland basin and is a major source of drinking water for the Denver area, flowing north through central Denver. The highly industrial Denver Valley is also a major railroad route. North of Denver it is joined by Clear Creek which descends from the mountains to the west in a canyon that was the cradle of the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush.

The South Platte is the Principal Source of Water for Eastern Colorado

History originally called the Rio Chato, and before the city of Denver was founded, many travelers came to the South Platte River to escape the arid Great Plains.

Fly Fishing a Gold Medal Western trout river on the Eastern Slope of Colorado, the river is well known for its brown and rainbow trout. 

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Missouri River Trails

Navigation Tributaries Watershed and People

The Missouri is the longest river in North America, rising in the Rocky Mountains and flowing east and south for 2,341 miles - 3,767 km - before connecting with the Mississippi north of St. Louis.

History for over 12 thousand years, people have depended on the Missouri River as a source of food and transportation as ten Native American groups have led a nomadic lifestyles along with the buffalo herds. In the late 17^th century, Spanish and French explorers reached the river which become part of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase of the early 1800s. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark followed the Missouri on their 1803-06 journey to the Pacific Ocean.

Navigation boat travel on the Missouri started with wood-framed canoes and Native American bull boats. The first steamboat was the Independence, in 1819. By the 1830s, large mail and freight-carrying vessels were running regularly between Kansas City and St. Louis. Water transport increased through the 1850s with craft ferrying pioneers, emigrants and miners. Steamboat navigation peaked in 1858 with over 130 boats operating full-time on the Missouri.

Tributaries nearly 100 significant tributaries and hundreds of smaller ones feed the Missouri River. Most rivers and streams in the Missouri River basin flow from west to east, following the incline of the Great Plains; however, some eastern tributaries, such as the James River, flow from north to south. The largest by runoff are the Yellowstone in Montana and Wyoming, and the Platte in Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska.

Upper and Lower the Upper River is north of Gavin Point Dam, the last of 15 hydroelectric dams upstream of Sioux City. The lower Missouri runs 840 miles meeting the Mississippi just above St. Louis.

The Watershed encompasses most of the central Great Plains, stretching from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Mississippi River Valley in the east and from the southern extreme of western Canada to the border of the Arkansas River. This watershed is home to 12 million people in Nebraska, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North and South Dakota, and Wyoming. The watershed's largest city is Denver; many northwestern cities, like Billings Montana, are among the fastest growing in the Missouri basin.

The Missouri Watershed includes 25 percent of Agricultural Land in the United States

The People archaeological evidence suggests that the first arrivals in the watershed of the Missouri River were between 10 and 12 thousand years ago, making the Missouri River one of the main migration paths that settled in the Ohio and the lower Mississippi River Valley.

Pioneers the river defined the American frontier in the 19^th century as the major trails that opened the American West started on the Missouri River.

The First Westward leg of the Pony Express was a Ferry across the Missouri River

 Most emigrants arrived at the eastern terminus of the First Transcontinental Railroad via a ferry ride across the Missouri between Council Bluffs and Omaha. In 1869, the Hannibal was the first bridge to cross the Missouri River near Kansas City, the largest city upstream from St. Louis.

Manifest Destiny over one half million people set out from the river town of Independence, Missouri to their various destinations in the American West from the 1830s to the 1860s. Covered wagons, known as prairie schooners, provided the primary means of transport until the beginning of regular boat service in side wheelers and sternwheelers in the 1850s. Over 80 percent of upstream passengers and freight hauled from the Midwest to Montana was transported by boat, a journey that took 150 days. Conflicts between natives and settlers over the opening of the Bozeman Trail in the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana resulted in Native American victory. However, the Great Sioux War of 1876-77, sparked when American miners discovered gold in the Black Hills, ended in relocation to reservations.

Missouri River Itineraries