Everything about The Wabash River totally explained
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's 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.
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.
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. 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. 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, and both have sometimes been called 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.
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.
Cities and towns along the Wabash
Illinois
Grayville
Hutsonville
Maunie
Mount Carmel
St. Francisville
Indiana
Andrews
Attica
Bluffton
Clinton
Covington
Delphi
Huntington
Lafayette
Lagro
Logansport
Markle
Merom
Montezuma
Newport
New Harmony
Perrysville
Peru
Terre Haute
Vincennes
Wabash
West Lafayette
Williamsport
Ohio
Fort RecoveryFurther Information
Get more info on 'Wabash River'.
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