The Iroquois River rises in Jasper County, Indiana, and flows generally west-southwestwardly through Newton County, Indiana, and Iroquois County, Illinois, where it turns northward and flows into Kankakee County, Illinois. It enters the Kankakee River from the south in Kankakee County, opposite the village of Aroma Park, about 4 miles (6 km) southeast of the city of Kankakee.
The name, La rivière des Iroquois was given to the riverway by the French, through the Annual of René de la Salle. It has been proposed that the river got it name from la Fourche des Iroquois or the Fork of the Iroquois, now Aroma Park. The French phrase would be a reference to "the Irouquois' Fork" or a place where the French or the French allied tribes (Illini) had an experience with the Iroquois at this location.[4]
The French explores had arrived in the Kankakee basin René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle in 1679. The Iroquois had been raiding across the Michigan Peninsula over the previous decade and began to move further west around the southern tip of Lac de Illinois or Lake Michigan. In 1682 he built Fort St. Louis atop Starved Rock State Park on the Illinois River as a place of refuge from raiding Iroquois. Thus, the history of the Beaver Wars as the Iroquois raids became known and the French name for the junction of the modern Iroquois River and the Kankakee River implies the movement of Iroquois raiding bands through this location and probably using the Iroquois River route as their way around the Great marsh of the Kankakee.[4]
A legend among the Illinois tells of a time the Iroquois were surprised along the bank of this waterway and were driven away with great losses. (Charlevoix‘ Narrative Journal, 1721, vol. 2, p. 199.) Colonel Guerdon Hubbard hears a similar story in the middle 19th Century.[5]
Basin
The Iroquois river is fed by the Sugar, Mud, Fountain Spring, Prairie, Langham, Pike and Beaver creeks. The Iroquois river, from the Sugar Island around Iroquois County Rd 3300 N to mouth in Aroma Park, the river is shallow and rocky. It is bordered by silurian limestone. South of the island the river is deep and slow moving, nearly to the state line.[5]
The Iroquois begins in the low lands, north and west of Rensselaer, Indiana. It circles clockwise to the north and east, entering Rensselaer from the east. Continuing southwestward for more than 30 miles (48 km) to Watseka, Illinois. Here the river turns towards the north, reaching its junction with the Kankakee another 30 miles (48 km).
^U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National MapArchived 2012-03-29 at the Wayback Machine, accessed May 13, 2011
