The great "Father of Waters," with its many tributaries, drains a
territory of a million and a half square miles, in which live almost
one-half the population of the United States. The length of the
Mississippi River from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico is about
twenty-six hundred miles, the actual distance in a direct line being
but sixteen hundred and sixty miles. Its name comes from the Ojibway
words _Misi Sepe_, meaning the "great river, flowing everywhere," and
the early explorers spelled it "Mesasippi." The Iroquois called it the
Kahnahweyokah, having much the same meaning. The upper waters of the
Mississippi have already been described in a preceding chapter, and
taken in connection with its chief tributary, the Missouri, it is one
of the longest rivers in the world, the distance from the source to
the Gulf being almost forty-two hundred miles. The Dakotas called this
stream _Minni-shosha_, or the "muddy water," and its popular name
throughout the Northwest, from the turbid current it carries, has come
to be the "Big Muddy." The head streams rise in Idaho, the _Eda Hoe_
of the Nez Perces, meaning the "Light on the Mountains," and in
Wyoming. The name of the Indian nation through whose lands its upper
waters flow--the Dakotahs--means the "Confederate People," indicating
a league of various tribes. The Mississippi drains practically the
whole country between the Appalachian Mountains on the east and the
"Continental Divide" of the Rockies on the west.
The Missouri River is formed in southwestern Montana, by the union of
the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin Rivers. Its length from the source
of the Madison River in the Yellowstone National Park to its
confluence with the Mississippi above St. Louis is about three
thousand miles. The first exploration of the headwaters of the
Missouri was by the famous expedition of Captains Lewis and Clark in
1805, who ascended to its sources, and crossing the Rockies descended
the Snake and Columbia Rivers into Oregon. They found the confluence
of the three rivers making the Missouri, in July, and called it "the
Three Forks," at the same time naming the rivers after President
Jefferson and his Secretaries of State and the Treasury. The Missouri,
from the junction, first flows northward through the defiles of the
Rockies, and breaks out of the mountain wall in Prickly Pear Canyon,
at the Gate of the Mountains, where the rocky cliffs rise twelve
hundred feet. Forty miles northeast it goes down its Great Falls to a
lower plateau, having a total descent of nearly five hundred feet, the
stream contracting in the gorge to a width of three hundred yards, and
tumbling over repeated cascades, with intervening rapids. The Black
Eagle descends fifty feet, Colter's Falls twelve feet, the Crooked
Falls twenty feet, the Rainbow forty-eight feet, and the Great Falls
ninety-two feet, this series of rapids and cascades covering a
distance of sixteen miles. Lewis and Clark were the first white men
who saw these magnificent cataracts of the Upper Missouri, and they
named the different falls. The Black Eagle was named from the fact
that on an island at its foot an eagle had fixed her nest on a
cottonwood tree. It is recorded by a United States Engineer officer
who was there in 1860, that the eagle's nest then still remained in
the cottonwood tree on the island, being occupied by a bald eagle of
large size. Again in 1872 the nest and the old eagle were still there,
and from the longevity of these birds, it was then believed to be the
same eagle seen in 1805. The old eagle nest and cottonwood tree are
all gone now, and in their place are a big dam, power-house and huge
ore-smelter, worked by the ample water-power of the fall. The
flourishing town of Great Falls gets its prosperity from these
cataracts and is a prominent locality for copper-smelting, having
fifteen thousand people. At the head of river navigation, some
distance farther down, is the military post of Fort Benton. The river
then flows eastward through Montana, receives the Yellowstone at Fort
Buford and turns southeast in North Dakota, passing Bismarck, the
capital, and flowing south and southeast it becomes the boundary
between Nebraska and Kansas on the west, and South Dakota, Iowa and
Missouri on the northeast. Its course is through an alluvial valley of
great fertility, from which it gathers the sediment with which its
waters are so highly charged. Much of the adjacent territory in Dakota
and Montana is covered by the extensive reservations of the Indian
tribes of the Northwest, where the remnants now live a semi-nomadic
life under military guardianship and government control. The river
flows past Yankton, a supply post for these reservations, which being
the settlement farthest up-stream, was thus named Yankton, meaning
"the village at the end." Some distance below, the Big Sioux River
flows in, forming the boundary between Dakota and Iowa, and here is
Sioux City, where there are forty thousand people, much trade, and
important manufactures.
Below here lived the Omahas, or "up-stream" Indians, and soon the
Missouri in its onward course flows between Omaha and Council Bluffs.
Here the bluffs bordering the river recede for some distance on the
eastern bank, making a broad plain adjoining the shore, whither the
Indians of all the region formerly came to hold their councils and
make treaties. A settlement naturally grew at the Council Bluffs,
which is now a city of twenty-five thousand people on the plain and
adjacent hills, with fine residences in the numerous glens
intersecting the bluffs in every direction. Three bridges cross the
Missouri to Omaha, on the western shore, two for railways, one of them
being the great steel bridge carrying over the Union Pacific, the
pioneer railroad constructed to the Pacific Coast. Omaha is the chief
city of Nebraska, the State receiving its name from the Nebraska
river, meaning the "place of broad shallow waters." Omaha has over one
hundred and fifty thousand people and is built on a wide plateau
elevated about eighty feet above the river, from which it gradually
slopes upward. It dates from 1854, but did not receive its impetus
until the completion of the Pacific Railway converged to it various
lines bringing an enormous trade. From its position at the initial
point it is known as the "Gate City." There are large manufactures and
its meat-packing industries are of the first importance, while its
enterprise is giving it rapid growth. The Union Pacific Railroad
pursues its route westward through Nebraska, up the valley of the
Platte River for several hundred miles, and at Fort Omaha, just north
of the city, is the military headquarters of the Department.