Bear River

Bear River
River
Lake at the head of Bear River, Uinta Mountains, Utah (photo taken 1868-1870).
Country	United States
States	Utah, Idaho, Wyoming
Source
- location	Uinta Mountains, Summit County, Utah
- elevation	13,000 ft (3,962 m) [1]
- coordinates	40°52′2″N 110°50′9″W / 40.86722°N 110.83583°W / 40.86722; -110.83583 [1]
Mouth
- location	Great Salt Lake, Box Elder County, Utah
- elevation	4,211 ft (1,284 m) [1]
- coordinates	41°27′30″N 112°17′25″W / 41.45833°N 112.29028°W / 41.45833; -112.29028 [1]
Length	500 mi (805 km)
Map of the Bear River watershed.

The Bear River is a river, approximately 350 miles (560 km) long, in southwestern Wyoming, southeastern Idaho, and northern Utah, in the United States. The largest tributary of the Great Salt Lake, it drains a mountainous area and farming valleys east of the lake and southwest of the Snake River Plain.

Course

The course of the river essentially makes a large inverted U around the north end of the Wasatch Range. It rises in northeastern Utah in several short forks on the north side of the high Uinta Mountains in southern Summit County. It flows north cutting across the southwest corner of Wyoming past Evanston then weaving along the Utah-Wyoming state line as it flows north. It turns northwest into Bear Lake County, Idaho and flows through the Bear Lake Valley in Idaho, past Montpelier where it receives the short Bear Lake Outlet Canal that drains Bear Lake, which straddles the Idaho-Utah border. At Soda Springs, near the north end of the Wasatch Range, the Bear River turns abruptly south, flowing past Preston in the broad Cache Valley that extends north from Logan, Utah. It re-enters northern Utah, meandering south past Cornish and Newton. It is impounded to form the Cutler Reservoir, where it receives the Little Bear River from the south. From the west end of Cutler Reservoir it flows south through the Bear River Valley of Utah past Bear River City. It receives the Malad River from the north just before emptying into the mud flats of a broad bay on the east side of the Great Salt Lake, approximately 10 miles (16 km) southwest of Brigham City.

Bear River is believed to have once been a tributary of the Snake River, but that lava flows near Pocatello, Idaho diverted it into what was then Lake Bonneville.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]}

Uses and protected areas

The river is used extensively for irrigation in the farming valleys through which it flows in its lower reaches Idaho and northern Utah.

The lower 10 miles (16 km) of the river near its delta on the Great Salt Lake are protected as part of Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.

History

In the early 19th century the river valley was inhabited by the Shoshone people. Fur trappers from the Hudson's Bay Company began to penetrate the area, exploring south from the Snake River as early as 1812. In the mid 19th century the Mormon Trail crossed the Bear River south of Evanston and the California and Oregon Trails followed the Bear River north out of Wyoming and to Fort Hall in Idaho. Some of the travelers on the trails chose to stay, populating the Bear River Valleys of Idaho and Utah. The Cache Valley was early destination for Mormon pioneers in the late 1840s. On January 29, 1863 troops of the United States Army attacked a Shoshone winter village in the Cache Valley, slaughtering many of its inhabitants. The incident has come to be known as the Bear River Massacre.

See also

• List of rivers in the Great Basin
• List of Utah rivers
• Mormon Trail

References

External links

• Bear River Watershed Historical Collection: Utah State University
• Utah History Encyclopedia: Bear River
• Utah History Encyclopedia: Bear River Massacre
• USFWS: Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge
• Bear River: A National Wildlife Refuge by V.T. Wilson and Rachel Carson (1950) (online pdf)
• Bear River Commission
• Bear River Flow Information
• Bear River Watershed Information System: Utah State University
• Bear River Watershed Information System Map Server: Utah State University