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

Paducah Kentucky

trade transportation arts and culture

Paducah is located at the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers, between St Louis and Nashville. The city is the hub of a micropolitan area comprising Kentucky and Illinois counties. First settled in 1821 and laid out by William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, it was named Padoucas, the word for Comanche from a Spanish transliteration.

Trade and Transportation

A River and Rail Economy was the key to Paducah’s development as a port, a red brick making factory, a foundry for making rail and locomotive components and dry dock facilities for steamboats and towboats comprised the town infrastructure. Thanks to its proximity to coal fields, Paducah was the home port for barge companies and an important railway hub connecting Chicago with the Gulf of Mexico.

The Paducah-McCraken County River Port Authority provides maritime services for the rural regions of Western Kentucky, Southern Illinois, Southeast Missouri, and Northwestern Tennessee. It specializes in bulk, agricultural and containerized cargoes. The agency specializes in bulk, agricultural, general and containerized cargoes, and operates a Foreign Trade Zone in the only Marine Highway Designation on the Ohio River and the only Marine Highway port on the river that is designated for container service.

Arts and Culture

The National Quilt Museum is a cultural destination that attracts quilters and art enthusiasts to the Paducah area. The museum features professional quilt and fiber art exhibits that are rotated throughout the year and is the largest single tourist attraction in the city.

Paducah is part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network

The Paducah Wall to Wall program was begun by mural artists on the downtown flood wall in 1996; over 50 murals address subjects ranging from Native American history, river barges, steamboats and local African-American heritage.

The Columbia River

American River Trails

The Columbia is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest and fourth largest by volume in the United States. Rising in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, it flows for 1,243 miles - 2,000 km - before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. Its watershed extends into seven US states and a Canadian province. The river's heavy flow and relatively steep gives it tremendous potential for the generation of electricity. 

14 Hydroelectric Dams produce more than 44 percent of total U.S. Hydroelectric Power

 

Culture the river and its tributaries have been central to the region's culture and economy for thousands of years. The river system hosts many species of fish, which migrate between fresh water habitats and the saline waters of the Pacific Ocean. Salmon provides the core subsistence for native peoples.

Transportation in past centuries, indigenous peoples traveled across western North America to the Columbia to trade for fish and overland explorers entered the Willamette Valley through the scenic Columbia River Gorge and pioneers began to settle the valley in increasing numbers. Steamboats along the river linked communities and facilitated trade; the arrival of railroads in the late 19^th century, many running along the river, supplemented these links.

Navigation locks were built to aid ship and barge service along the lower Columbia and its tributaries; dredging has opened, maintained, and enlarged ship channels. Since the early 20^th century, dams have been built across the river for the power generation, navigation, irrigation and flood control. 

Planning Your Trip assumes uniquely local dimensions in the places you visit, rooted in the local economy, history and traditions. TEMA develops personalized itineraries based on your preferences; we leverage an in-depth knowledge of your destinations with superior client service throughout your trip.

Your anchor locations when visiting the Columbia River: Portland Oregon and Seattle

Native Americans have inhabited the Columbia's watershed for more than 15,000 years, with a transition to a sedentary lifestyle based mainly on salmon starting about 3,500 years ago. In 1996 the skeletal remains of the 9,000-year-old prehistoric Kennewick man. Oral histories describe the formation and destruction of a land bridge that connected the Oregon and Washington sides of the river in the Columbia River Gorge. The bridge aligns with geological records of the Bonneville Slide. Stories about the bridge differ in their details but agree in general that the bridge permitted increased interaction between tribes on the north and south sides of the river.

European and American ships explored the coastal area around the mouth of the Columbia in the late 18^th century, trading with local natives. Lewis and Clark entered Oregon country between 1805 and 1807, encountering numerous small native settlements. From the earliest contact with westerners, the natives were not tribal, but instead congregated in social units no larger than a village, and more often at a family level. 

Captain Gray was the First Explorer to enter the River; he named it after his Ship Colombia Rediviva

Irrigation many farmers in central Washington build dams on their property for irrigation and to control frost on their crops. Six such dams have failed in recent years, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to crops and public roads. Fourteen farms in the area have gone through the permitting process to build such dams legally.

The Columbia Colorado and Mississippi Watersheds meet at Three Waters Mountain in Wyoming

Tributaries the Columbia receives more than 60 tributaries; the four largest are the Snake River, the Willamette River, the Kootenay River and the Pend Oreille River.

Connect with Tema for Columbia River Itineraries

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