Native Americans have lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries for thousands of years. Many were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural and urban civilizations, and some practiced aquaculture. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the native way of life as first explorers, then settlers, ventured into the basin in increasing numbers.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The river served sometimes as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States, and throughout as a vital transportation artery and communications link. In the 19th century, during the height of the ideology of manifest destiny, the Mississippi and several tributaries, most notably its largest, the Ohio and Missouri, formed pathways for the western expansion of the United States. The river also became the subject of American literature, particularly in the writings of Mark Twain.
Formed from thick layers of the river's silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment, and American Bottom are some of the most fertile regions of the United States; steamboats were widely used in the 19th and early 20th centuries to ship agricultural and industrial goods. During the American Civil War, the Mississippi's final capture by Union forces marked a turning point to victory for the Union. Because of the substantial growth of cities and the larger ships and barges that replaced steamboats, the first decades of the 20th century saw the construction of massive engineering works such as levees, locks and dams, often built in combination. A major focus of this work has been to prevent the lower Mississippi from shifting into the channel of the Atchafalaya River and bypassing New Orleans.
Since the 20th century, the Mississippi River has also experienced major pollution and environmental problems, most notably elevated nutrient and chemical levels from agricultural runoff, the primary contributor to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone.
The Mississippi River can be divided into three sections: the Upper Mississippi, the river from its headwaters to the confluence with the Missouri River; the Middle Mississippi, which is downriver from the Missouri to the Ohio River; and the Lower Mississippi, which flows from the Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico.
The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca, Template:Convert above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, Minnesota. The name Itasca was chosen to designate the "true head" of the Mississippi River as a combination of the last four letters of the Latin word for truth (Template:Lang) and the first two letters of the Latin word for head (Template:Lang).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams.
From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, Missouri, the waterway's flow is moderated by 43 dams. Fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in the headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all contain locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river. Taken as a whole, these 43 dams significantly shape the geography and influence the ecology of the upper river. Beginning just below Saint Paul, Minnesota, and continuing throughout the upper and lower river, the Mississippi is further controlled by thousands of wing dikes that moderate the river's flow in order to maintain an open navigation channel and prevent the river from eroding its banks.
The uppermost lock and dam on the Upper Mississippi River is the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in Minneapolis. Above the dam, the river's elevation is Template:Convert. Below the dam, the river's elevation is Template:Convert. This Template:Convert drop is the largest of all the Mississippi River locks and dams. The origin of the dramatic drop is a waterfall preserved adjacent to the lock under an apron of concrete. Saint Anthony Falls is the only true waterfall on the entire Mississippi River. The water elevation continues to drop steeply as it passes through the gorge carved by the waterfall.
After the completion of the St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in 1963, the river's head of navigation moved upstream, to the Coon Rapids Dam. However, the Locks were closed in 2015 to control the spread of invasive Asian carp, making Minneapolis once again the site of the head of navigation of the river.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref>
By the time the Upper Mississippi reaches Saint Paul, Minnesota, below Lock and Dam No. 1, it has dropped more than half its original elevation and is Template:Convert above sea level. From St. Paul to St. Louis, Missouri, the river elevation falls much more slowly and is controlled and managed as a series of pools created by 26 locks and dams.<ref>2001 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Upper Mississippi River Navigation Chart</ref>
The Upper Mississippi is largely a multi-thread stream with many bars and islands. From its confluence with the St. Croix River downstream to Dubuque, Iowa, the river is entrenched, with high bedrock bluffs lying on either side. The height of these bluffs decreases to the south of Dubuque, though they are still significant through Savanna, Illinois. This topography contrasts strongly with the Lower Mississippi, which is a meandering river in a broad, flat area, only rarely flowing alongside a bluff (as at Vicksburg, Mississippi).
The Middle Mississippi is relatively free-flowing. From St. Louis to the Ohio River confluence, the Middle Mississippi falls Template:Convert over Template:Convert for an average rate of Template:Convert. At its confluence with the Ohio River, the Middle Mississippi is Template:Convert above sea level. Apart from the Missouri and Meramec rivers of Missouri and the Kaskaskia River of Illinois, no major tributaries enter the Middle Mississippi River.
The Mississippi River is called the Lower Mississippi River from its confluence with the Ohio River to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of about Template:Convert. At the confluence of the Ohio and the Middle Mississippi, the long-term mean discharge of the Ohio at Cairo, Illinois is Template:Convert,<ref>Frits van der Leeden, Fred L. Troise, David Keith Todd: The Water Encyclopedia, 2nd edition, p. 126, Chelsea, Mich. (Lewis Publishers), 1990, Template:ISBN</ref> while the long-term mean discharge of the Mississippi at Thebes, Illinois (just upriver from Cairo) is Template:Cvt.<ref>USGS stream gage 07022000 Mississippi River at Thebes, ILTemplate:Webarchive</ref> Thus, by volume, the main branch of the Mississippi River system at Cairo can be considered to be the Ohio River (and the Allegheny River further upstream), rather than the Middle Mississippi.
The Mississippi River has the world's fourth-largest drainage basin ("watershed" or "catchment"). The basin covers more than Template:Convert, including all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. The drainage basin empties into the Gulf of Mexico, part of the Atlantic Ocean. The total catchment of the Mississippi River covers nearly 40% of the landmass of the continental United States. The highest point within the watershed is also the highest point of the Rocky Mountains, Mount Elbert at Template:Convert.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico about Template:Convert downstream from New Orleans. Measurements of the length of the Mississippi from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico vary somewhat, but the United States Geological Survey's number is Template:Convert. The retention time from Lake Itasca to the Gulf is typically about 90 days;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> while speed varies along the course of the river, this gives an overall average of around Template:Cvt per day, or Template:Cvt per hour.
The Mississippi River discharges at an annual average rate of between Template:Convert.<ref name="mississippirivercfs">Template:Cite web</ref> The Mississippi is the fourteenth largest river in the world by volume. On average, the Mississippi has 8% the flow of the Amazon River,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
which moves nearly Template:Convert during wet seasons.
Before 1900, the Mississippi River transported an estimated Template:Convert of sediment per year from the interior of the United States to coastal Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. During the last two decades, this number was only Template:Convert per year. The reduction in sediment transported down the Mississippi River is the result of engineering modification of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio rivers and their tributaries by dams, meander cutoffs, river-training structures, and bank revetments and soil erosion control programs in the areas drained by them.<ref name="MeadelOthers1984">Meade, R. H., and J. A. Moody, 1984, Causes for the decline of suspended-sediment discharge in the Mississippi River system, 1940–2007 Hydrology Processes vol. 24, pp. 35–49.</ref>
Denser salt water from the Gulf of Mexico forms a salt wedge along the river bottom near the mouth of the river, while fresh water flows near the surface. In drought years, with less fresh water to push it out, salt water can travel many miles upstream—Template:Convert in 2022—contaminating drinking water supplies and requiring the use of desalination. The United States Army Corps of Engineers constructed "saltwater sills" or "underwater levees" to contain this in 1988, 1999, 2012, and 2022. This consists of a large mound of sand spanning the width of the river 55 feet below the surface, allowing fresh water and large cargo ships to pass over.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Fresh river water flowing from the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico does not mix into the salt water immediately. The images from NASA's MODIS show a large plume of fresh water, which appears as a dark ribbon against the lighter-blue surrounding waters. These images demonstrate that the plume did not mix with the surrounding sea water immediately. Instead, it stayed intact as it flowed through the Gulf of Mexico, into the Straits of Florida, and entered the Gulf Stream. The Mississippi River water rounded the tip of Florida and traveled up the southeast coast to the latitude of Georgia before finally mixing in so thoroughly with the ocean that it could no longer be detected by MODIS.
Over geologic time, the Mississippi River has experienced numerous large and small changes to its main course, as well as additions, deletions, and other changes among its numerous tributaries, and the lower Mississippi River has used different pathways as its main channel to the Gulf of Mexico across the delta region.
As Pangaea began to break up about 95 million years ago, North America passed over a volcanic "hotspot" in the Earth's mantle (specifically, the Bermuda hotspot) that was undergoing a period of intense activity. The upwelling of magma from the hotspot forced the further uplift to a height of perhaps 2–3 km of part of the Appalachian-Ouachita range, forming an arch that blocked southbound water flows. The uplifted land quickly eroded and, as North America moved away from the hot spot and as the hotspot's activity declined, the crust beneath the embayment region cooled, contracted and subsided to a depth of 2.6 km, and around 80 million years ago the Reelfoot Rift formed a trough that was flooded by the Gulf of Mexico. As sea levels dropped, the Mississippi and other rivers extended their courses into the embayment, which gradually became filled with sediment with the Mississippi River at its center.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Through a natural process known as avulsion or delta switching, the lower Mississippi River has shifted its final course to the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico every thousand years or so. This occurs because the deposits of silt and sediment begin to clog its channel, raising the river's level and causing it to eventually find a steeper, more direct route to the Gulf of Mexico. The abandoned distributaries diminish in volume and form what are known as bayous. This process has, over the past 5,000 years, caused the coastline of south Louisiana to advance toward the Gulf from Template:Convert. The currently active delta lobe is called the Birdfoot Delta, after its shape, or the Balize Delta, after La Balize, Louisiana, the first French settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi.
The current form of the Mississippi River basin was largely shaped by the Laurentide Ice Sheet of the most recentIce Age. The southernmost extent of this enormous glaciation extended well into the present-day United States and Mississippi basin. When the ice sheet began to recede, hundreds of feet of rich sediment were deposited, creating the flat and fertile landscape of the Mississippi Valley. During the melt, giant glacial rivers found drainage paths into the Mississippi watershed, creating such features as the Minnesota River, James River, and Milk River valleys. When the ice sheet completely retreated, many of these "temporary" rivers found paths to Hudson Bay or the Arctic Ocean, leaving the Mississippi Basin with many features "over-sized" for the existing rivers to have carved in the same time period.
c. 5000 BC: The last ice age ended; world sea level became what it is now.
c. 2500 BC: Bayou Teche became the main course of the Mississippi.
c. 800 BC: The Mississippi diverted further east.
c. 200 AD: Bayou Lafourche became the main course of the Mississippi.
c. 1000 AD: The Mississippi's present course took over.
Before c. 1400 AD: The Red River of the South flowed parallel to the lower Mississippi to the sea
15th century: Turnbull's Bend in the lower Mississippi extended so far west that it captured the Red River of the South. The Red River below the captured section became the Atchafalaya River.
1831: Captain Henry M. Shreve dug a new short course for the Mississippi through the neck of Turnbull's Bend.
1833 to November 1873: The Great Raft (a huge logjam in the Atchafalaya River) was cleared. The Atchafalaya started to capture the Mississippi and to become its new main lower course.
1963: The Old River Control Structure was completed, controlling how much Mississippi water entered the Atchafalaya.
In March 1876, the Mississippi suddenly changed course near the settlement of Reverie, Tennessee, leaving a small part of Tipton County, Tennessee, attached to Arkansas and separated from the rest of Tennessee by the new river channel. Since this event was an avulsion, rather than the effect of incremental erosion and deposition, the state line still follows the old channel.<ref name="Arkansas v. Tennessee, 246 U.S. 158">Template:Cite web</ref>
The town of Kaskaskia, Illinois once stood on a peninsula at the confluence of the Mississippi and Kaskaskia (Okaw) Rivers. Founded as a French colonial community, it later became the capital of the Illinois Territory and was the first state capital of Illinois until 1819. Beginning in 1844, successive flooding caused the Mississippi River to slowly encroach east. A major flood in 1881 caused it to overtake the lower Template:Convert of the Kaskaskia River, forming a new Mississippi channel and cutting off the town from the rest of the state. Later flooding destroyed most of the remaining town, including the original State House. Today, the remaining Template:Convert island and community of 14 residents is known as an enclave of Illinois and is accessible only from the Missouri side.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The New Madrid Seismic Zone, along the Mississippi River near New Madrid, Missouri, between Memphis and St. Louis, is related to an aulacogen (failed rift) that formed at the same time as the Gulf of Mexico. This area is still quite active seismically. Four great earthquakes in 1811 and 1812, estimated at 8 on the Richter magnitude scale, had tremendous local effects in the then sparsely settled area, and were felt in many other places in the Midwestern and eastern U.S. These earthquakes created Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee from the altered landscape near the river.
When measured from its traditional source at Lake Itasca, the Mississippi has a length of Template:Convert. When measured from its longest stream source (most distant source from the sea), Brower's Spring in Montana, the source of the Missouri River, it has a length of Template:Convert, making it the fourth longest river in the world after the Nile, Amazon, and Yangtze.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> When measured by the largest stream source (by water volume), the Ohio River, by extension the Allegheny River, would be the source, and the Mississippi would begin in Pennsylvania.<ref>Mississippi River Water Quality and the Clean Water Act: Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities. National Academies Press, 2008, ISBN 9780309177818, pp. 27–29Template:Webarchive</ref>
At its source at Lake Itasca, the Mississippi River is about Template:Convert deep. The average depth of the Mississippi River between Saint Paul and Saint Louis is between Template:Convert deep, the deepest part being Lake Pepin, which averages Template:Convert deep and has a maximum depth of Template:Convert. Between where the Missouri River joins the Mississippi at Saint Louis, Missouri, and Cairo, Illinois, the depth averages Template:Convert. Below Cairo, where the Ohio River joins, the depth averages Template:Convert deep. The deepest part of the river is in New Orleans, where it reaches Template:Convert deep.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Mississippi River runs through or along 10 states, from Minnesota to Louisiana, and is used to define portions of these states' borders, with Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi along the east side of the river, and Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas along its west side. Substantial parts of both Minnesota and Louisiana are on either side of the river, although the Mississippi defines part of the boundary of each of these states.
In all of these cases, the middle of the riverbed at the time the borders were established was used as the line to define the borders between adjacent states.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Yale.edu "Treaty of Friendship, Limits, and Navigation", Avalon project at the Yale Law School</ref> In various areas, the river has since shifted, but the state borders have not changed, still following the former bed of the Mississippi River as of their establishment, leaving several small isolated areas of one state across the new river channel, contiguous with the adjacent state. Also, due to a meander in the river, a small part of western Kentucky is contiguous with Tennessee but isolated from the rest of its state.
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The road crossing highest on the Upper Mississippi is a simple steel culvert, through which the river (locally named "Nicolet Creek") flows north from Lake Nicolet under "Wilderness Road" to the West Arm of Lake Itasca, within Itasca State Park.<ref>Google Streetview imageTemplate:Webarchive at 47.1938103 N, 95.2306761 W</ref>
The earliest bridge across the Mississippi River was built in 1855. It spanned the river in Minneapolis where the current Hennepin Avenue Bridge is located.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> No highway or railroad tunnels cross under the Mississippi River.
The first railroad bridge across the Mississippi was built in 1856. It spanned the river between the Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois and Davenport, Iowa. Steamboat captains of the day, fearful of competition from the railroads, considered the new bridge a hazard to navigation. Two weeks after the bridge opened, the steamboat Effie Afton rammed part of the bridge, setting it on fire. Legal proceedings ensued, with Abraham Lincoln defending the railroad. The lawsuit went to the Supreme Court of the United States, which ruled in favor of the railroad.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Below is a general overview of selected Mississippi bridges that have notable engineering or landmark significance, with their cities or locations. They are sequenced from the Upper Mississippi's source to the Lower Mississippi's mouth.
Chain of Rocks BridgeTemplate:Spaced ndashLocated on the northern edge of St. Louis, notable for a 22-degree bend occurring at the middle of the crossing, necessary for navigation on the river; formerly used by U.S. Route 66 to cross the Mississippi. Replaced for road traffic in 1966 by a nearby pair of new bridges; now a pedestrian bridge.
Eads BridgeTemplate:Spaced ndashA combined road and railway bridge, connecting St. Louis and East St. Louis, Illinois. When completed in 1874, it was the longest arch bridge in the world, with an overall length of Template:Convert. The three ribbed steel arch spans were considered daring, as was the use of steel as a primary structural material; it was the first such use of true steel in a major bridge project.
A clear channel is needed for the barges and other vessels that make the main stem Mississippi one of the great commercial waterways of the world. The task of maintaining a navigation channel is the responsibility of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, which was established in 1802.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Earlier projects began as early as 1829 to remove snags, close off secondary channels and excavate rocks and sandbars.
The upper backwaters of the Mississippi normally freeze over by December, while the main channel freezes over only in the coldest years, historically as far south as St. Louis.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
A series of 29 locks and dams on the upper Mississippi, most of which were built in the 1930s, is designed primarily to maintain a Template:Convert channel for commercial barge traffic.<ref>Template:Cite web
</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The lakes formed are also used for recreational boating and fishing. The dams make the river deeper and wider but do not stop it. No flood control is intended. During periods of high flow, the gates, some of which are submersible, are completely opened and the dams simply cease to function. Below St. Louis, the Mississippi is relatively free-flowing, although it is constrained by numerous levees and directed by numerous wing dams. The scope and scale of the levees, built along either side of the river to keep it on its course, has often been compared to the Great Wall of China.<ref name="NewYorker1987"/>
In 1829, there were surveys of the two major obstacles on the upper Mississippi, the Des Moines Rapids and the Rock Island Rapids, where the river was shallow and the riverbed was rock. The Des Moines Rapids were about Template:Convert long and just above the mouth of the Des Moines River at Keokuk, Iowa. The Rock Island Rapids were between Rock Island and Moline, Illinois. Both rapids were considered virtually impassable.
In 1848, the Illinois and Michigan Canal was built to connect the Mississippi River to Lake Michigan via the Illinois River near Peru, Illinois. The canal allowed shipping between these important waterways. In 1900, the canal was replaced by the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The second canal, in addition to shipping, also allowed Chicago to address specific health issues (typhoid fever, cholera and other waterborne diseases) by sending its waste down the Illinois and Mississippi river systems rather than polluting its water source of Lake Michigan.
The Corps of Engineers recommended the excavation of a Template:Convert channel at the Des Moines Rapids, but work did not begin until after Lieutenant Robert E. Lee endorsed the project in 1837. The Corps later also began excavating the Rock Island Rapids. By 1866, it had become evident that excavation was impractical, and it was decided to build a canal around the Des Moines Rapids. The canal opened in 1877, but the Rock Island Rapids remained an obstacle. In 1878, Congress authorized the Corps to establish a Template:Convert channel to be obtained by building wing dams that direct the river to a narrow channel causing it to cut a deeper channel, by closing secondary channels and by dredging. The channel project was complete when the Moline Lock, which bypassed the Rock Island Rapids, opened in 1907.
To improve navigation between St. Paul, Minnesota, and Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, the Corps constructed several dams on lakes in the headwaters area, including Lake Winnibigoshish and Lake Pokegama. The dams, which were built beginning in the 1880s, stored spring run-off which was released during low water to help maintain channel depth.
In 1907, Congress authorized a Template:Convert channel project on the Mississippi River, which was not complete when it was abandoned in the late 1920s in favor of the Template:Convert channel project.
Before the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the Corps's primary strategy was to close off as many side channels as possible to increase the flow in the main river. It was thought that the river's velocity would scour off bottom sediments, deepening the river and decreasing the possibility of flooding. The 1927 flood proved this to be so wrong that communities threatened by the flood began to create their own levee breaks to relieve the force of the rising river.
The Rivers and Harbors Act of 1930 authorized the Template:Convert channel project, which called for a navigation channel Template:Convert feet deep and Template:Convert wide to accommodate multiple-barge tows.<ref>Template:Cite web
</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This was achieved by a series of locks and dams, and by dredging. Twenty-three new locks and dams were built on the upper Mississippi in the 1930s in addition to the three already in existence.
Until the 1950s, there was no dam below Lock and Dam 26 at Alton, Illinois. Chain of Rocks Lock (Lock and Dam No. 27), which consists of a low-water dam and an Template:Convert canal, was added in 1953, just below the confluence with the Missouri River, primarily to bypass a series of rock ledges at St. Louis. It also serves to protect the St. Louis city water intakes during times of low water.
U.S. government scientists determined in the 1950s that the Mississippi River was starting to switch to the Atchafalaya River channel because of its much steeper path to the Gulf of Mexico. Eventually, the Atchafalaya River would capture the Mississippi River and become its main channel to the Gulf of Mexico, leaving New Orleans on a side channel. As a result, the U.S. Congress authorized a project called the Old River Control Structure, which has prevented the Mississippi River from leaving its current channel that drains into the Gulf via New Orleans.<ref name="SJSU">Template:Cite web</ref>
Because the large scale of high-energy water flow threatened to damage the structure, an auxiliary flow control station was built adjacent to the standing control station. This $300 million project was completed in 1986 by the Corps of Engineers. Beginning in the 1970s, the Corps applied hydrological transport models to analyze flood flow and water quality of the Mississippi. Dam 26 at Alton, Illinois, which had structural problems, was replaced by the Mel Price Lock and Dam in 1990. The original Lock and Dam 26 was demolished.
Some of the pre-1927 strategy remains in use today, with the Corps actively cutting the necks of horseshoe bends, allowing the water to move faster and reducing flood heights.<ref name="US Army Corps of Engineers">Template:Cite web</ref>
Approximately 50,000 years ago, the Central United States was covered by an inland sea, which was drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries into the Gulf of Mexico—creating large floodplains and extending the continent further to the south in the process. The soil in areas such as Louisiana was thereafter found to be very rich.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
A network of trade routes referred to as the Hopewell interaction sphere was active along the waterways between about 200 and 500 AD, spreading common cultural practices over the entire area between the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes. A period of more isolated communities followed, and agriculture introduced from Mesoamerica based on the Three Sisters (maize, beans and squash) gradually came to dominate. After around 800 AD there arose an advanced agricultural society today referred to as the Mississippian culture, with evidence of highly stratifiedcomplexchiefdoms and large population centers.
The most prominent of these, now called Cahokia, was occupied between about 600 and 1400 AD<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and at its peak numbered between 8,000 and 40,000 inhabitants, larger than London, England of that time. At the time of first contact with Europeans, Cahokia and many other Mississippian cities had dispersed, and archaeological finds attest to increased social stress.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The word Mississippi itself comes from Messipi, the French rendering of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe or Algonquin) name for the river, Misi-ziibi (Great River).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Ojibwe called Lake Itasca Omashkoozo-zaaga'igan (Elk Lake) and the river flowing out of it Omashkoozo-ziibi (Elk River). After flowing into Lake Bemidji, the Ojibwe called the river Bemijigamaag-ziibi (River from the Traversing Lake). After flowing into Cass Lake, the name of the river changes to Gaa-miskwaawaakokaag-ziibi (Red Cedar River) and then out of Lake Winnibigoshish as Wiinibiigoonzhish-ziibi (Miserable Wretched Dirty Water River), Gichi-ziibi (Big River) after the confluence with the Leech Lake River, then finally as Misi-ziibi (Great River) after the confluence with the Crow Wing River.<ref>Gilfillan, Joseph A., "Minnesota Geographical Names Derived from the Chippewa Language" in The Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota: The Fifteenth Annual Report for the Year 1886 (St. Paul: Pioneer Press Company, 1887)</ref> After the expeditions by Giacomo Beltrami and Henry Schoolcraft, the longest stream above the juncture of the Crow Wing River and Gichi-ziibi was named "Mississippi River". The Mississippi River Band of Chippewa Indians, known as the Gichi-ziibiwininiwag, are named after the stretch of the Mississippi River known as the Gichi-ziibi. The Cheyenne, one of the earliest inhabitants of the upper Mississippi River, called it the Máʼxe-éʼometaaʼe (Big Greasy River) in the Cheyenne language. The Arapaho name for the river is Beesniicíe.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Pawnee name is Kickaátit.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 1519 Spanish explorer Alonso Álvarez de Pineda became the first recorded European to reach the Mississippi River, followed by Hernando de Soto who reached the river on May 8, 1541, and called it Río del Espíritu Santo ("River of the Holy Spirit"), in the area of what is now Mississippi.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In Spanish, the river is called Río Mississippi.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
When Louis Jolliet explored the Mississippi Valley in the 17th century, natives guided him to a quicker way to return to French Canada via the Illinois River. When he found the Chicago Portage, he remarked that a canal of "only half a league" (less than Template:Convert) would join the Mississippi and the Great Lakes.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1848, the continental divide separating the waters of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley was breached by the Illinois and Michigan canal via the Chicago River.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This both accelerated the development, and forever changed the ecology of the Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes.
In 1718, about Template:Convert upriver, New Orleans was established along the river crescent by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, with construction patterned after the 1711 resettlement on Mobile Bay of Mobile, the capital of French Louisiana at the time.
In 1727, Étienne Perier begins work, using enslaved African laborers, on the first levees on the Mississippi River.
Article 8 of the Treaty of Paris (1783) states, "The navigation of the river Mississippi, from its source to the ocean, shall forever remain free and open to the subjects of Great Britain and the citizens of the United States". With this treaty, which ended the American Revolutionary War, Britain also ceded West Florida back to Spain to regain the Bahamas, which Spain had occupied during the war. Initial disputes around the ensuing claims of the U.S. and Spain were resolved when Spain was pressured into signing Pinckney's Treaty in 1795. However, in 1800, under duress from Napoleon of France, Spain ceded an undefined portion of West Florida to France in the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso. The United States then secured effective control of the river when it bought the Louisiana Territory from France in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. This triggered a dispute between Spain and the U.S. on which parts of West Florida Spain had ceded to France in the first place, which would decide which parts of West Florida the U.S. had bought from France in the Louisiana Purchase, versus which were unceded Spanish property. Due to ongoing U.S. colonization creating facts on the ground, and U.S. military actions, Spain ceded both West and East Florida in their entirety to the United States in the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819.
File:Crop of 1861 William Momberger Battle of New Orleans.jpgThe United States used a motley crew to defend the mouth of the Mississippi River in 1815; forces included Tennessee and Kentucky militiamen, free men of color, French Creoles, Choctaw Indians, slave-trading privateers based out of Galveston, and Mississippi plantation slaves recruited to dig earthworks for "Line Jackson"
The last serious European challenge to U.S. control of the river came at the conclusion of the War of 1812, when British forces mounted an attack on New Orleans just 15 days after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. The attack was repulsed by an American army under the command of General Andrew Jackson.
In the Treaty of 1818, the U.S. and Great Britain agreed to fix the border running from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains along the 49th parallel north. In effect, the U.S. ceded the northwestern extremity of the Mississippi basin to the British in exchange for the southern portion of the Red River basin.
So many settlers traveled westward through the Mississippi river basin, as well as settled in it, that Zadok Cramer wrote a guidebook called The Navigator, detailing the features, dangers, and navigable waterways of the area. It was so popular that he updated and expanded it through 12 editions over 25 years.
Mark Twain's book, Life on the Mississippi, covered the steamboat commerce, which took place from 1830 to 1870, before more modern ships replaced the steamer. Harper's Weekly first published the book as a seven-part serial in 1875. James R. Osgood & Company published the full version, including a passage from the then unfinished Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and works from other authors, in 1885.
The first steamboat to travel the full length of the Lower Mississippi from the Ohio River to New Orleans was the New Orleans in December 1811. Its maiden voyage occurred during the series of New Madrid earthquakes in 1811–12. The Upper Mississippi was treacherous, unpredictable and to make traveling worse, the area was not properly mapped out or surveyed. Until the 1840s, only two trips a year to the Twin Cities landings were made by steamboats, which suggests it was not very profitable.<ref>Roseman, Curtis C., and Elizabeth M. Roseman. Grand Excursions on the Upper Mississippi River : Places, Landscapes, And Regional Identity After 1854. Iowa City: University Of Iowa Press, 2004.</ref> The Secretary of War, Charles M. Conrad in 1851 authorized a scientific study of the river in order to prevent flooding primarily.<ref>Pabis, George S. “Delaying the Deluge: The Engineering Debate over Flood Control on the Lower Mississippi River, 1846-1861.” The Journal of Southern History, vol. 64, no. 3, 1998, pp. 421–54. JSTOR website Retrieved 4 May 2025.</ref> The report was first published in 1861<ref>Humphreys, A. A. (Andrew Atkinson), 1810-1883. Report upon the physics and hydraulics of the Mississippi river; upon the protection of the alluvial region against overflow; and upon the deepening of the mouths ... Submitted to the Bureau of Topographical Engineers, War Department, 1861. Prepared by Captain A.A. Humphreys and Lieut. H.L. Abbot. Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1861.
xxiv, 17-456, cxlvi p. xx fold. pl. (incl. maps, diagrs.) tables. 34 cm.
TC425.M6 H6. Library of Congress website Retrieved 4 May 2025.</ref> under the title, "Report upon the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River" and was the most extensive river study undertaken in the world at that time.<ref>Humphreys, A. A., et al. Report upon the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River : Upon the Protection of the Alluvial Region against Overflow, and upon the Deepening of the Mouths : Based upon Surveys and Investigations Made under the Acts of Congress Directing the Topographical and Hydrographical Survey of the Delta of the Mississippi River, with Such Investigations as Might Lead to Determine the Most Practicable Plan for Securing It from Inundation, and the Best Mode of Deepening the Channels at the Mouths of the River. Government Printing Office, 1867.The Internet Archive website Retrieved 4 May 2025.</ref>
Steamboat transport remained a viable industry, both in terms of passengers and freight, until the end of the first decade of the 20th century. Among the several Mississippi River system steamboat companies was the noted Anchor Line, which, from 1859 to 1898, operated a luxurious fleet of steamers between St. Louis and New Orleans.
Italian explorer Giacomo Beltrami wrote about his journey on the Virginia, which was the first steamboat to make it to Fort St. Anthony in Minnesota. He referred to his voyage as a promenade that was once a journey on the Mississippi. The steamboat era changed the economic and political life of the Mississippi, as well as of travel itself. The Mississippi was completely changed by the steamboat era as it transformed into a flourishing tourist trade.<ref>Smith, Thomas Ruys. River of Dreams : Imagining The Mississippi Before Mark Twain. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007.</ref>
Control of the river was a strategic objective of both sides in the American Civil War, forming a part of the U.S. Anaconda Plan. In 1862, Union forces coming down the river successfully cleared Confederate defenses at Island Number 10 and Memphis, Tennessee, while Naval forces coming upriver from the Gulf of Mexico captured New Orleans, Louisiana. One of the last major Confederate strongholds was on the heights overlooking the river at Vicksburg, Mississippi; the Union's Vicksburg Campaign (December 1862 – July 1863), and the fall of Port Hudson, completed control of the lower Mississippi River. The Union victory ended the Siege of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, and was pivotal to the Union's final victory of the Civil War.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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The "Big Freeze" of 1918–19 blocked river traffic north of Memphis, Tennessee, preventing transportation of coal from southern Illinois. This resulted in widespread shortages, high prices, and rationing of coal in January and February.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 1930, Fred Newton was the first person to swim the length of the river, from Minneapolis to New Orleans. The journey took 176 days and covered 1,836 miles.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 1962 and 1963, industrial accidents spilled Template:Convert of soybean oil into the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers. The oil covered the Mississippi River from St. Paul to Lake Pepin, creating an ecological disaster and a demand to control water pollution.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
On October 20, 1976, the automobile ferry, MV George Prince, was struck by a ship traveling upstream as the ferry attempted to cross from Destrehan, Louisiana, to Luling, Louisiana. Seventy-eight passengers and crew died; only eighteen survived the accident.
In 1988, the water level of the Mississippi fell to Template:Convert below zero on the Memphis gauge. The remains of wooden-hulled water craft were exposed in an area of Template:Convert on the bottom of the Mississippi River at West Memphis, Arkansas. They dated to the late 19th to early 20th centuries. The State of Arkansas, the Arkansas Archeological Survey, and the Arkansas Archeological Society responded with a two-month data recovery effort. The fieldwork received national media attention as good news in the middle of a drought.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Great Flood of 1993 was another significant flood, primarily affecting the Mississippi above its confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois.
Two portions of the Mississippi were designated as American Heritage Rivers in 1997: the lower portion around Louisiana and Tennessee, and the upper portion around Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin. The Nature Conservancy's project called "America's Rivershed Initiative" announced a 'report card' assessment of the entire basin in October 2015 and gave the grade of D+. The assessment noted the aging navigation and flood control infrastructure along with multiple environmental problems.<ref>"Mississippi River Basin Receives D+ in First-Ever Report Card" (Press Release). U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Mississippi Valley Division. October 14, 2015. Retrieved November 7, 2015. US Army Corps of Engineers website</ref>
In 2002, Slovenian long-distance swimmer Martin Strel swam the entire length of the river, from Minnesota to Louisiana, over the course of 68 days. In 2005, the Source to Sea Expedition<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> paddled the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers to benefit the Audubon Society's Upper Mississippi River Campaign.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Geologists believe that the lower Mississippi could take a new course to the Gulf. Either of two new routes—through the Atchafalaya Basin or through Lake Pontchartrain—might become the Mississippi's main channel if flood-control structures are overtopped or heavily damaged during a severe flood.<ref name="AmericasWetlands">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="DailyImpact">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="InteractiveMap">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Nola article with flood volume">Template:Cite news</ref>
Failure of the Old River Control Structure, the Morganza Spillway, or nearby levees would likely re-route the main channel of the Mississippi through Louisiana's Atchafalaya Basin and down the Atchafalaya River to reach the Gulf of Mexico south of Morgan City in southern Louisiana. This route provides a more direct path to the Gulf of Mexico than the present Mississippi River channel through Baton Rouge and New Orleans.<ref name="InteractiveMap"/> While the risk of such a diversion is present during any major flood event, such a change has so far been prevented by active human intervention involving the construction, maintenance, and operation of various levees, spillways, and other control structures by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The Old River Control Structure, between the present Mississippi River channel and the Atchafalaya Basin, sits at the normal water elevation and is ordinarily used to divert 30% of the Mississippi flow to the Atchafalaya River. There is a steep drop here away from the Mississippi's main channel into the Atchafalaya Basin. If this facility were to fail during a major flood, there is a strong concern the water would scour and erode the river bottom enough to capture the Mississippi's main channel. The structure was nearly lost during the 1973 flood, but repairs and improvements were made after engineers studied the forces at play. In particular, the Corps of Engineers made many improvements and constructed additional facilities for routing water through the vicinity. These additional facilities give the Corps much more flexibility and potential flow capacity than they had in 1973, which further reduces the risk of a catastrophic failure in this area during other major floods, such as that of 2011.
Because the Morganza Spillway is slightly higher and well back from the river, it is normally dry on both sides.<ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore</ref> Even if it failed at the crest during a severe flood, the floodwaters would have to erode to normal water levels before the Mississippi could permanently jump channel at this location.<ref name="USACE">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> During the 2011 floods, the Corps of Engineers opened the Morganza Spillway to 1/4 of its capacity to allow Template:Convert of water to flood the Morganza and Atchafalaya floodways and continue directly to the Gulf of Mexico, bypassing Baton Rouge and New Orleans.<ref name="usace-inundation">Estimated Inundation (US Army Corps of Engineers)</ref> In addition to reducing the Mississippi River crest downstream, this diversion reduced the chances of a channel change by reducing stress on the other elements of the control system.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Some geologists have noted that the possibility for course change into the Atchafalaya also exists in the area immediately north of the Old River Control Structure. Army Corps of Engineers geologist Fred Smith once stated, "The Mississippi wants to go west. 1973 was a forty-year flood. The big one lies out there somewhere—when the structures can't release all the floodwaters and the levee is going to have to give way. That is when the river's going to jump its banks and try to break through."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Another possible course change for the Mississippi River is a diversion into Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans. This route is controlled by the Bonnet Carré Spillway, built to reduce flooding in New Orleans. This spillway and an imperfect natural levee about Template:Cvt high are all that prevents the Mississippi from taking a new, shorter course through Lake Pontchartrain to the Gulf of Mexico.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Diversion of the Mississippi's main channel through Lake Pontchartrain would have consequences similar to an Atchafalaya diversion, but to a lesser extent, since the present river channel would remain in use past Baton Rouge and into the New Orleans area.
The sport of water skiing was invented on the river in a wide region between Minnesota and Wisconsin known as Lake Pepin.<ref name="usaws">Template:Cite web</ref> Ralph Samuelson of Lake City, Minnesota, created and refined his skiing technique in late June and early July 1922. He later performed the first water ski jump in 1925 and was pulled along at Template:Cvt by a Curtiss flying boat later that year.<ref name="usaws"/>
There are seven National Park Service sites along the Mississippi River. The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area is the National Park Service site dedicated to protecting and interpreting the Mississippi River itself. The other six National Park Service sites along the river are (listed from north to south):
The Mississippi basin is home to a highly diverse aquatic fauna and has been called the "mother fauna" of North American freshwater.<ref name=Matthews1998>Template:Cite book</ref>
About 375 fish species are known from the Mississippi basin, far exceeding other North Hemisphere river basins exclusively within temperate/subtropical regions,<ref name=Matthews1998/> except the Yangtze.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Within the Mississippi basin, streams that have their source in the Appalachian and Ozark highlands contain especially many species. Among the fish species in the basin are numerous endemics, as well as relicts such as paddlefish, sturgeon, gar and bowfin.<ref name=Matthews1998/>
In addition, approximately 40% of the migratory birds in the US use the Mississippi River corridor during the Spring and Fall migrations; 60% of all migratory birds in North America (326 species) use the river basin as their flyway.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Ambrose, Stephen. The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today (National Geographical Society, 2002) heavily illustrated
Botkin, Benjamin Albert. A Treasury of Mississippi River folklore: stories, ballads & traditions of the mid-American river country (1984).
Carlander, Harriet Bell. A history of fish and fishing in the upper Mississippi River (PhD Diss. Iowa State College, 1954) onlineTemplate:Webarchive (PDF)
Daniel, Pete. Deep'n as it come: The 1927 Mississippi River flood (University of Arkansas Press, 1977)
Fremling, Calvin R. Immortal river: the Upper Mississippi in ancient and modern times (U. of Wisconsin Press, 2005), popular history
Knox, James C. The Mississippi River System. In Avijit Gupta, ed., Large Rivers: Geomorphology and Management. 2nd Ed. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 205–252. ISBN 9781119412601
Milner, George R. "The late prehistoric Cahokia cultural system of the Mississippi River valley: Foundations, florescence, and fragmentation." Journal of World Prehistory (1990) 4#1 pp: 1–43.
Morris, Christopher. The Big Muddy: An Environmental History of the Mississippi and Its Peoples From Hernando de Soto to Hurricane Katrina (Oxford University Press; 2012) 300 pages; links drought, disease, and flooding to the impact of centuries of increasingly intense human manipulation of the river.
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