Grand River (Missouri)

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The Grand River is a river that stretches from northernmost tributary origins between Creston and Winterset in Iowa approximately 226 miles to its mouth on the Missouri River near Brunswick, Missouri.

Its watershed of 7,900 square miles (20,000 km²) with three-fourths in Missouri, makes it the largest watershed serving the Missouri River in northern Missouri. ^[1]

Notable river-oriented locations include Adam-ondi-Ahman near Gallatin, Missouri which Latter Day Saint prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. said is the site where Adam and Eve lived after being evicted from the Garden of Eden and Fort D'Orleans erected by French explorer Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont which is believed to have been at the mouth of the Grand on Missouri River in 1723 (the French named the river "La Grande Riviére").^[2]. The fort was abandoned in 1726 and has been obliterated by floods.

Swan Lake National Wildlife Refuge is on the Yellow Creek tributary at Sumner, Missouri.

In 1835 the Missouri Legislature declared it a navigable stream to the Iowa line although steamboat traffic never extended much further than Chillicothe, Missouri and then it was subject to problems with water levels. The town of Bedford, Missouri is named for a steamer that sank there.^[3]

The West and East Forks of the Grand rise just south of Creston in Union County, Iowa. The Middle Fork rises at Mount Ayr, Iowa in Ringgold County, Iowa. The three forks merge just south of Albany, Missouri in Gentry County, Missouri and that is where the river officially assumes the single Grand River name.

The biggest confluence of streams is at Chillicothe where the Thompson River and Shoal, Medicine, and Locust creeks merge with the river. The Grand River Basin has more than 1,000 third order or higher streams.

No dams are on the river although at various times plans have been proposed for five dams with the most prominent being the Pattonsburg Dam at Pattonsburg, Missouri. The United States Corps of Engineers bought out the residents after the Great Flood of 1993 however the proposed dam has never materialized.

Average discharge for the Grand at Sumner, Missouri is 3,917 ft³/s (111 m³/s). The maximum instantaneous peak flow of 180,000 ft³/s (5,100 m³/s) occurred in June, 1947. During the 1993 flood 150,000 ft³/s (4,200 m³/s) was reported at Sumner.^[4]

The Grand descends at a rate of about three feet per mile (0.5 m/km) although the Pop's Branch near Princeton, Missouri descends at 44 feet per mile (8 m/km).^[5]

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