Ocmulgee River

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Ocmulgee River
South, Yellow, and Alcovy rivers
 • locationLloyd Shoals Dam
 • coordinates33°19′15″N 83°50′39″W / 33.32083°N 83.84417°W / 33.32083; -83.84417
South River
 • rightYellow River, Alcovy River

The Ocmulgee River (/ɒkˈmʌlɡiː/) is a western tributary of the Altamaha River, approximately 255 mi (410 km) long, in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the westernmost major tributary of the Altamaha.[1] It was formerly known by its Hitchiti name of Ocheese Creek, from which the Creek (Muscogee) people derived their name.

The Ocmulgee River and its tributaries provide drainage for some 6,180 square miles in parts of 33 Georgia counties, a large section of the Piedmont and coastal plain of central Georgia.[1]

The Ocmulgee River

hydrologic unit code 03070103); the Lower Ocmulgee River Subbasin (03070104); and the Little Ocmulgee River Subbasin (03070105).[2]

The name of the river may have come from a Hitchiti words oki ("water") plus molki ("bubbling" or "boiling"),[3] possibly meaning "where the water boils up."[1]

Ocmulgee River Looking southeast toward Second Street in Macon, Georgia

Description

The river

reservoir.[1] The river's source is formed at an elevation of around 530 feet above sea level.[1]

The Ocmulgee River flows from the dam southeast past

Fall Line. It joins the Oconee from the northwest (241 miles downstream from Jackson Lake) to form the Altamaha near Lumber City.[1] The Ocmulgee River Water Trail begins from Macon's Amerson River Park to the confluence near Lumber city and Hazelhurst, encompassing approximately 200 miles.[4]

Human use

Four

Georgia Power Company.[5] Plant Scherer is the seventh-largest power plant in the United States by capacity (based on 2016 data), and the largest to be fueled exclusively by coal.[6]

Fish fauna

A diverse array of fish—105 species in twenty-one

families—inhabit the Ocmulgee River basin.[2] The family with the largest representation in the river basin is Cyprinidae (carp and true minnows), with 27 species.[2] It is followed by Centrarchidae (sunfish), which has 22 species.[2] The Ocmulgee basin contains ten species in the family Ictaluridae (catfish) and eight species of in the family Catostomidae (suckers).[2] The river basin is also inhabited by one State of Georgia-designated endangered fish species, the Altamaha shiner (Cyprinella xaenura) and two designated rare species, the goldstripe darter (Etheostoma parvipinne) and redeye chub (Notropis harperi).[2]

The Ocmulgee River is popular with anglers for its excellent fishing, particularly for redbreast sunfish, bluegill, redear sunfish, largemouth bass, black crappie, channel catfish, and flathead catfish.[2] The world record for largest recorded catch of a largemouth bass was achieved in 1932 in Montgomery Lake, an oxbow lake off the Ocmulgee River in Telfair County.[2][7] The record-setting fish, caught by farmer George Washington Perry, weighed 22 pounds, 4 ounces.[7][8] The International Game Fish Association officially declared the world record for largemouth bass tied in 2010, following Manabu Kurita's catch (in July 2009) of a 22 pound, 4 ounce largemouth taken from Lake Biwa in Japan.[9]

There are some fifteen

Cyprinus carpio); flathead catfish (Pylodictis olivaris); white bass (Morone chrysops); morone hybrids (Morone sp.); green sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus); longear sunfish (Lepomis megalotis); Lepomis hybrids (Lepomis sp.); shoal bass (Micropterus cataractae); spotted bass (Micropterus punctulatus); white crappie (Pomoxis annularis); and yellow perch (Perca flavescens).[2]

History

Archeological evidence shows that

Paleoindians hunters have been discovered in the Ocmulgee floodplain.[1]

In the

sherds.[1]

There is evidence that the

Ocmulgee National Monument, a National Park Service-administered protected area established in 1936.[1]

disease and chaos following European contact.[1]

Between 1689 and 1692, a number of towns of the

Yamassee War in 1715, the Ochese Creek towns moved west, mostly returning to the Chattahoochee River, where they evolved into the Lower Towns of the Muscogee Confederacy (referred to by the English as the "Lower Creeks").[10]

Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin stimulated development of short-staple cotton plantations in the uplands, where it grew well. The gin mechanized processing of the cotton and made it profitable. Demand for land in the Southeast increased, as well as demand for slave labor in the Deep South. In 1806, the U.S. acquired the area between the Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers from the Creek Indians by the First Treaty of Washington. That same year United States Army established Fort Benjamin Hawkins overlooking the Ocmulgee Fields. In 1819 the Creek held their last meeting at Ocmulgee Fields. they ceded this territory in 1821.

Image showing Ocmulgee River flooding in Spring 1876
Ocmulgee River flood in Spring 1876

In the same year, the McCall brother established a barge-building operation at Macon. The first

railroad to Savannah. The river froze from bank to bank in 1886. In 1994 devastating floods on the river after heavy rains caused widespread damage around Macon.[11]

Ocmulgee creeks

Major creeks that flow into the Ocmulgee River include:

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Ocmulgee River, New Georgia Encyclopedia (August 9, 2004).
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Ocmulgee River Basin Plan, Section 2: River Basin Characteristics, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Environmental Protection Division.
  3. ISBN 978-0-8061-3598-4
    . Retrieved 16 September 2011.
  4. ^ "Ocmulgee River Water Trail | Georgia River Network". Retrieved 2019-07-11.
  5. ^ Ocmulgee River: Quick Facts about the River, Georgia River Network (accessed June 6, 2015).
  6. ^ "Electricity in the United States - Energy Explained, Your Guide To Understanding Energy - Energy Information Administration". www.eia.gov. Retrieved 2018-05-10.
  7. ^ a b Richard J. Lenz, Highroad Guide to the Georgia Coast and Okefenokee (Longstreet Press: 1999), p. 199.
  8. ^ Monte Burke, Sowbelly: The Obsessive Quest for the World-Record Largemouth Bass (Penguin Group USA, 2006), p. xiii.
  9. ^ Dale Bowman, World-record largemouth bass tie: Formal word, Sun-Times (January 8, 2010).
  10. ISBN 9-780-8130-2086-0
    .
  11. ^ "1994 flood", Centers for Disease Control
  12. ^ "Tucsawhatchee Creek Near Hawkinsville, GA".
  • Snow, Dean (2010). Archaeology of Native North America. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. pp. 208–209.
    ISBN 978-0-13-615686-4
    .


Relevant readings

  • Watson, Chris. 2022. The Wild and the Sacred: Evaluating and Protecting the Ocmulgee River Corridor, Vol. 1. Series edited by S. Heather Duncan. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
  • Day, Dominic. 2022. A River of Time: Archaeological Treasures of the Ocmulgee Corridor, vol. 2. Series edited by S. Heather Duncan. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
  • Bigman, Daniel Philip. From Settlement to Society: A History of the Early Mississippian Settlement at Ocmulgee, Volume 3. Series edited by S. Heather Duncan. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.

External links

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