Yellow River (Indiana)

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Yellow River
none The Yellow River in Knox in 2006
The Yellow River in Knox in 2006
Country United States
State Indiana
Length 50 mi (80 km) approx. [1]
Watershed 427 sq mi (1,106 km²) [2]
Discharge at Knox
 - average 374.4 cu ft/s (10.6 m³/s) (2005) [3]
Source
 - location St. Joseph County
 - coordinates 41°29′54″N 86°09′08″W / 41.49833, -86.15222 [4]
 - elevation 804 ft (245 m) [5]
Mouth Kankakee River
 - location Starke County
 - coordinates 41°16′16″N 86°49′35″W / 41.27111, -86.82639 [4]
 - elevation 656 ft (200 m) [5]

The Yellow River is a tributary of the Kankakee River, approximately 50 miles (80 km) long, in northern Indiana in the United States. Via the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River, draining an area of 427 square miles (1,106 km²). The river's name possibly derives from a translation of the Potawatomi name for the river, We-thau-ka-mik, meaning "yellow waters,"[6] a description perhaps owing to the presence of sand in the riverbed.[7]

The Yellow River in Plymouth in 2006
The Yellow River in Plymouth in 2006

Significant portions of the Yellow River's course have been straightened and channelized; the river's present-day course is considered to begin at a confluence of agricultural ditches in southeastern St. Joseph County, approximately four miles (6 km) north of the town of Bremen. The river initially flows southwardly into Marshall County, past Bremen; then generally southwestwardly, returning to its naturally winding riverbed and flowing through the city of Plymouth; and westwardly in a substantially straightened course through Starke County, past the city of Knox. It flows into the Kankakee River in southwestern Starke County, approximately ten miles (16 km) west of Knox.[6][8]

[edit] History

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In 1832, during the Indian removal period, a group of Potawatomi chiefs signed a treaty with the U.S. government setting aside for the Potawatomi in perpetuity an area of 14,000 acres (57 km²) in the vicinity of the Yellow River; this land was sold at the 1836 Treaty of Yellow River, signed by three Potawatomi chiefs, which stipulated that all Potawatomi move west of the Mississippi River within two years. One chief, Menominee, refused to sign the later treaty; his band of 859 people were forcibly removed to Kansas in 1838, in an event known as the Potawatomi Trail of Death.[6]

At the time of European settlement, the area of the confluence of the Yellow and Kankakee Rivers was a densely vegetated marsh, seven miles (11 km) long, known as English Lake. The lower Yellow River was confined to a straightened channel and the wetland was drained and converted to farmland by the 1910s. A spit of land between the straightened Yellow and Kankakee channels was established by the state of Indiana as the Kankakee State Fish and Wildlife Area in 1933 and converted back to marshland.[6]

The straightened section of the Yellow River in Starke County, which had historically been a swampy and winding stream with numerous oxbow lakes,[6] was the subject of a 2004 effort by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to address excess accumulation of sediment in the river's streambed as a result of channelization.[7]

[edit] See also

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[edit] References

  1. ^ Yellow River. Columbia Gazetteer of North America. Columbia University Press (2000). Retrieved on 2007-04-23.
  2. ^ Price, Jeremy; Bob Robertson (January 2005). Fishery, Habitat, and Recreational Use Surveys For the Kankakee River, Indiana. Fisheries Division. Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish and Wildlife. Retrieved on 2007-04-23.
  3. ^ United States Geological Survey. USGS Surface-Water Annual Statistics for Indiana: USGS 05517000 Yellow River at Knox, Indiana. Retrieved on 2007-04-23.
  4. ^ a b Geographic Names Information System. Geographic Names Information System entry for Yellow River (Feature ID #452845). Retrieved on 2007-04-23.
  5. ^ a b Google Earth elevation for GNIS source coordinates. Retrieved on 2007-04-23.
  6. ^ a b c d e Simons, Richard S. (1985). The Rivers of Indiana. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, pp. 198-202. ISBN 0-253-17476-7. 
  7. ^ a b United States Army Corps of Engineers (2004-08-27). Yellow River. Retrieved on 2007-04-23.
  8. ^ (1998) Indiana Atlas & Gazetteer. Yarmouth, Me.: DeLorme, pp. 19-21. ISBN 0-89933-211-0.