The Saline River is a 397-mile-long (639 km)[3]tributary of the Smoky Hill River in the central Great Plains of North America. The entire river is in the U.S. state of Kansas in the northwest part of the state. The river got its name from the French translation of its Native name Ne Miskua. It refers to how salty the river is.[4]
The first recorded reference to the Saline River was on October 18, 1724, by French explorer Etienne Venyard de Bourgmont. He wrote that he found a "small river where the water was briny."[8] Bourgmont was on his way to discuss a peace treaty with the Padouca. Their "Grand Village" was on the Saline River's banks.[10][11] In 1806, an American journey led by Zebulon Pike crossed the river on its way to visit the Pawnee. By 1817, the river was called the "Grand Saline."[8]
The Pawnee and the Kansa, who used the area for hunting, had land along the Saline River. This was until the 1850s when American settlers started coming. The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 created the Kansas Territory, which included all of the Saline River. By 1873, the U.S. government had removed the Kansa to a reservation in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).[10]
The Saline River flooded sometimes during the late 19th century. Particularly bad floods happening in 1858, 1867, and 1903.[8] In 1964, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dammed the river in eastern Russell County for flood control, creating Wilson Lake.[13]
↑U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National MapArchived 2017-08-23 at the Wayback Machine, accessed March 29, 2011
↑Aiken, Charles Curry (2004). The American Counties: Origins of County Names, Dates of Creation, and Population Data, 1950-2000. Lanham: Scarecrow Press. p. 266.
↑Blackmar, Frank W., ed. (1912). "Saline River". Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. Vol. 2. Chicago: Standard. p. 639. Archived from the original on 2008-06-16. Retrieved 2019-08-07.
.jpg)
