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Wabash River
Map of the Wabash River watershed with the Wabash River highlighted.
Map of the Wabash River watershed with the Wabash River highlighted.
Origin Near St. Henry, Ohio in Mercer County, Ohio
Mouth Ohio River near Uniontown, Kentucky
Basin countries USA
Length 475 mi (765 km)
Avg. discharge 35,350 ft³/s (1001 m³/s)
Basin area 39,950 mi² (85,340 km²)
The Wabash River at Lafayette, Indiana, showing the Main Street bridge, and the Amtrak station. The river flows from left to right (north to south). This stretch is notable for large, sandy deposits.
The Wabash River at Lafayette, Indiana, showing the Main Street bridge, and the Amtrak station. The river flows from left to right (north to south). This stretch is notable for large, sandy deposits.
The Wabash River at Covington, Indiana
The Wabash River at Covington, Indiana

The Wabash River is a 475 mi (765 km) long river in the eastern United States that flows southwest from northwest Ohio near St. Henry, Ohio across northern Indiana to Illinois where it forms the southern Illinois-Indiana border before draining into the Ohio River, of which it is the largest northern tributary. From the dam near Huntington to its terminus at the Ohio River, the Wabash flows freely for 661 kilometers (411 miles) which makes it the longest stretch of free-flowing river in the United States east of the Mississippi River.citation needed

The Wabash is the state river of Indiana, and subject of the state song, "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away" by Paul Dresser.

Contents

History

When the Wisconsin Glacier melted 14,000 years ago, part of the meltwaters formed the proglacial Lake Maumee, the ancestor to Lake Erie. Eventually the meltwaters overtopped a glacial moraine located near Fort Wayne, Indiana, and catastrophically drained southwestward in the Maumee Torrent. The torrent carved the wide alluvial valley that the Wabash uses today.

The name "Wabash" is an English spelling of the French name for the river, "Ouabache." French traders named the river after the Miami Indian word for the river, waapaahšiiki, meaning "it shines white". The Miami name reflected the clarity of the river in Huntington County, Indiana where the river bottom is limestone.[1] This is a historical oddity since today the river bottom is no longer visible due to water pollution and agricultural siltation.

The Wabash was mapped and named by French explorers to the Mississippi, including the sections now known as the Ohio River[2][3]. For 200 years, from the mid-1600s into the 1800s, the Wabash was a major trading route, linking Canada, Quebec and the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and Louisiana.

Three notable battles in U.S. history: the Battle of Vincennes (1779), St. Clair's Defeat (1791) and the Battle of Tippecanoe (1811), were fought near the Wabash; the last two have each been referred to as the "Battle of the Wabash".

A 329 acre remnant of the old-growth forests that once bordered the Wabash can be found at Beall Woods State Park, near Mount Carmel, Illinois.

In the 1800s, the Wabash and Erie Canal, one of the longest canals in the world, was built.

On July 2, 2008, it was reported that after heavy flooding over the previous several weeks the river had cut a new channel. This cut-off created a new 1,700 acre island at Mackeys Bend. This is now the largest island on the Wabash River. Detailed information about this historic event can be found at http://www.indianawaterways.com/wabashrivercutoff.htm

Major tributaries

The major tributaries of the Wabash River include:

Dams

  • The Wabash River is regulated by a dam operated by the Army Corps of Engineers near Huntington, Indiana. The dam creates J. Edward Roush Lake, and the surrounding property makes up the J. Edward Roush State Park.[4]

Cities and towns along the Wabash

Illinois

A small island and water fowl wildlife refuge in the Wabash near Mount Carmel, Illinois.
A small island and water fowl wildlife refuge in the Wabash near Mount Carmel, Illinois.

Indiana

Ohio

See also

Indiana portal

Further reading

Arthur Benke & Colbert Cushing, "Rivers of North America". Elsevier Academic Press, 2005 ISBN 0-12-088253-1

Rhodes, Captain Rick, "The Ohio River --In American History and Voyaging on Today's River" has a section on the Wabash River, 2007, ISBN 978-09665866-33

Notes and References

  1. ^ Bright, pg. 537
  2. ^ Law, 10. Although the Wabash is today considered a tributary of the Ohio, it was considered the other way around in the early 18th century. This is due to the fact that the French traders traveled North and South from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and the Ohio River was not considered an important trade route until France and Great Britain began fighting for control over it, sparking the French and Indian War.
  3. ^ Click here to see a detail of a French map, dated 1718, showing the Ohio River as a tributary of the Wabash.
  4. ^ U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - J. Edward Roush Lake http://www.lrl.usace.army.mil/jerl/
  • Bright, William Native American Placenames of the United States. 2004. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press
  • Law, Judge Colonial History of Vincennes 1858. Harvey, Mason & Co.

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