Excerpt
The Missouri River, the longest river in North America, has shaped the ancient and modern landscapes, cultures, and economies of Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, western Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri. The agrarian heritage of the region is deeply rooted in the seeds planted in the Dakota soils and cultivated by the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Indians (Lewis and Clark Visitor Center 2016). The river flows 3,767 km (2,341 mi) east and south from the Rocky Mountains of western Montana through the shortgrass and tallgrass prairies of the Great Plains of the United States to its confluence with the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri (figure 1).
Migrant and native peoples have depended on the Missouri River and its tributaries for transportation, food, and trade throughout North America for over 12,000 years or since the end of the Pleistocene period. The confluence with the Mississippi River links the entire Missouri River basin to the Gulf of Mexico and forms the third longest river system (5,936 km [3,710 mi]) in the world. The lands adjacent to the broad, wide Missouri River are historically subject to flooding when the ice melts in the Rockies and heavy spring rains rush downstream making cities,…
- © 2017 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society