The Missouri River

The Missouri River. . , Today, the Missouri River is 2315 miles in length. At Nebraska City it is 1755 miles from the headwaters in Montana and 560 miles to its mouth near St. Louis, MO. where it empties into the Mississippi River. It is North America's longest river but it no longer resembles the river Lewis and Clark explored in the early 1800's. In those days, floods were a regular occurrence in April and June of each year. The April floods were caused by ice and snow melt locally, the June floods were a result of snow melt in the Rocky Mountains at the river's source. These floods sent water into the low lying areas, cutting new channels and creating new islands and sandbars by depositing nutrient rich soil., The Lewis and Clark expedition spent 64 days traveling from Camp Wood, IL. to this point. The mileage would have been much greater at that time because the river had numerous curves. Beginning in 1927 the river was channeled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from its confluence with the Mississippi to Sioux City, IA. This created a channel 200' wide and 6' deep to facilitate barge traffic. In 1944 the Pick-Sloan Plan called for a series of five dams on the Missouri. By the mid 1960's major floods on the Missouri River were a thing of the past. The communities along the lower Missouri River were grateful to be free of the annual floods. However, the controlled flow of the river reduced the amount of nutrient rich sediment [t]hat can be deposited on the low lying areas during traditional flood seasons. The richness of bottomland farm fields was created by such deposits over the centuries., At this point you are 190 feet above the river. The other shore is in the state of Iowa and the bluffs in the distance are the Loess Hills.