Marais des Cygnes River
Marais des Cygnes River Big Osage River, Brush Creek, Grand River, Old Aunt Mary River[1] | |
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Location | |
Country | United States |
State | Kansas, Missouri |
Physical characteristics | |
Source confluence | |
• location | Lyon County, Kansas |
• coordinates | 38°34′05″N 95°58′28″W / 38.56806°N 95.97444°W |
• elevation | 1,112 ft (339 m) |
• average | 2,189 cu ft/s (62.0 m3/s) |
• minimum | 0 cu ft/s (0 m3/s) |
• maximum | 129,000 cu ft/s (3,700 m3/s) |
Basin features | |
Tributaries | |
• left | 110 Mile Creek, Bull Creek |
• right | Pottawatomie Creek |
Watersheds | Marais des Cygnes-Osage-Missouri-Mississippi |
The Marais des Cygnes River (/ˌmɛər də ˈziːn, - ˈsiːn, ˈmɛər də ziːn/ MAIR de ZEEN, - zeen, - SEEN,[3][4] French: [maʁɛ de siɲ]) is a principal tributary of the Osage River, about 217 miles (349 km) long,[5] in eastern Kansas and western Missouri in the United States. Via the Osage and Missouri rivers, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River.
The name Marais des Cygnes means "Marsh of the Swans" in French (presumably in reference to the trumpeter swan which was historically common in the Midwest).
The river is notorious for
Course
The Marais des Cygnes is formed about 1 mile north of Reading, Kansas, a city in northern Lyon County, by the confluence of Elm Creek and One Hundred Forty-Two Mile Creek, and flows generally east-southeastwardly through Osage, Franklin, Miami and Linn counties in Kansas, and Bates County in Missouri, past the Kansas towns of Melvern, Quenemo, Ottawa, Osawatomie and La Cygne and through the Marais des Cygnes National Wildlife Refuge. In Missouri, it joins the Little Osage River at the boundary of Bates and Vernon counties to form the Osage River, 6 miles (10 km) west of Schell City.
In Osage County, Kansas, a
Floods
The Marais des Cygnes River has a history of
Some of the more notable floods after 1844 include the 1909 flood, cresting at 36.3 feet (11.1 m); the 1915 flood, cresting at 31 feet (9.4 m); the 1928 flood, cresting at 38.65 feet (11.78 m); the 1944 flood, cresting at 36.5 feet (11.1 m); the 1951 flood, cresting at 42.97 feet (13.10 m); and the 2007 flood, cresting at 36.07 feet (10.99 m).[6]
The
As a result of the 1951 flood, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built levees and flood control systems on the Marais des Cygnes in the 1960s, including massive freestanding gated floodwalls in Ottawa, Kansas. Main Street (Old U.S. Highway 59) in Ottawa has to be detoured or is simply closed down when the gates are shut.
Variant names
The United States Board on Geographic Names settled on "Marais des Cygnes River" as the name in 1971.[1] According to the Geographic Names Information System, the river has also been known as:
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See also
- List of Kansas rivers
- List of Missouri rivers
- Battle of Marais des Cygnes
References
- ^ a b c "Marais des Cygnes River". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
- ^ "Water-Data Report 2013 - 06916600 Marais des Cygnes River near Kansas-Missouri State Line, KS" (PDF). U.S. Geological Survey. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
- ^ "Marais des Cygnes". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins. Retrieved 4 May 2019.
- ^ "Marais des Cygnes". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Retrieved 4 May 2019.
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map Archived 2012-03-29 at the Wayback Machine, accessed May 31, 2011
- ^ "LaCygne kansas Official Website". Archived from the original on 2010-06-15. Retrieved 2010-05-28. Pictures of the Flood of 2007 in La Cygne, KS