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Obiwan_Salami t1_j13c5kd wrote

Reply to comment by Kdlbrg43 in When this bridge in Fort Benton, Montana, USA was built 1888 it was required to have a swing span to allow steamboats to navigate. It was considered the furthest navigable point on Earth, more than 2,700 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. by triviafrenzy

illinois river most definitely reaches lake michigan. especially before chicago played engineer with the chicago river. even now there is barge traffic there. btw chicago river had its flow reversed and now drains away from lake michigan. but its all still navigable.

edited to fix flow mistake.

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AdmiralVernon t1_j13gqbv wrote

Not without a canal to connect the Illinois to the Chicago. There used to be a portage used by natives for centuries followed by early European explorers, but the waterways weren’t connected until mid 19th century by the Illinois & Michigan Canal.

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Obiwan_Salami t1_j13hsb7 wrote

in 1848 which predates op and fort benton in 1880. i'd still say that the south branch chicago river could have been navigable by smaller craft. but maybe not large steam boats.

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blubblu t1_j13mfmd wrote

You would?

Not to sound too obtuse, but how would you know that at all?

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peteroh9 t1_j141juq wrote

Doesn't matter if it's navigable if you couldn't get to it from the Illinois river. It originally flowed into Lake Michigan because it wasn't connected to the Illinois River.

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Kdlbrg43 t1_j13cfbq wrote

But I don't think there originally used to be a connection, like before the large scale projects, at least I can't find anything online.

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Obiwan_Salami t1_j13d53k wrote

it did. the chicago river used to flow into lake michigan. over time, sewage built up in the lake and chicagos' drinking water was poisoned with bad disease outbreaks happening. so engineers reversed the flow around 1900ish in order to move sewage away from city and clean up the lake.

here

i been down the chicago river south branch almost to midway airport in a 40 ft. sailboat as it was being motored into winter storage at a marina along the river. thats almost to the joining at des plaines river and i saw barge traffic the entire way. entirely possible to get to the mississippi river from there.

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rechlin t1_j144amm wrote

But that point was closer to the ocean than Montana. The point here is this was the farthest point away from the end of a river that the river was still navigable.

Of course, this was in the 1800s. That part of the Missouri has not been navigable since the 1950s when the USACE built a set of flood-control dams on the Missouri.

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peteroh9 t1_j141yy7 wrote

Do you not realize that they reversed it by connecting the rivers? How would the Chicago River have flowed into Lake Michigan and connected to a river that flows to the ocean?

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ClapAlongChorus t1_j13sxwr wrote

correct, entirely possible because the ship and sanitary canal connect the two seperate watersheds in 1900. Before that, there was not a navigable connection between the chicago and the des plaines.

edit: actually the calumet canal connects the south branch to the des plaines river, I think, but I know less about it, other

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ClapAlongChorus t1_j13rz9a wrote

hey Obiwan, I think you're misreading the definition of navigable. Up until 1900 with the completion of the of the chicago ship and sanitary canal, there was no connection between the Des Plaines / Illinois River and the Chicago River / Lake Michigan.

Is the divide between the two watersheds very low in elevation? Yes. Was the Chicagoland area a low swamp where travelers often picked up their canoe to get from one waterway to the other? Yes. Could you travel in a boat, without getting out of the boat, with water under the entire boat enough to keep the boat floating, from Lake Michigan to the Des Plaines / Illinois River system? Nope. That is why chicago played engineer with the chicago river.

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