Does this mean it's the furthest point away from open ocean, that you can still get to by boat?

[deleted]

This is the kind of history I can get with.

[removed]

Furs was one of the first mercantile to go down the missouri and mississippi. Using the river they could avoid paying taxes.

I don’t think taxes are what mattered. Especially in an era where tariffs were the main tax. Rivers were used because you could actually sell them to non local markets where they were much more valuable.

They haven’t replaced a steel bridge since 1888?

Some of it was replaced after the great flood

[removed]

They did. It's a remote rural area, so there's no money in tearing it down probably. It's been pedestrian-only since 1962 when they built the new bridge a few hundred meters further down. Ironically enough, the wiki says the "new" bridge deck is in bad shape and they're currently exploring ways to overhaul it.

furthest navigable point" wut?

pretty sure there were people, traders, and rivers in canada in the 1880's. every reason for river traffic.

or am i misunderstanding?

edit...and btw 2473 km or 1536 miles.

I think they mean it's the furthest inland you can travel from the ocean/sea just by boat (and from the title, maybe specifically steamboats). You can take the Mississippi up from New Orleans to St Louis and then the Missouri goes all the way up to this part of Montana.

OP, I’d love a source for the second part of your post. It’s not in what you linked.

this makes a little more sense, but in that vein, couldn't you hit the great lakes to get to canada as well?

Those rivers in Canada are all closer to the sea (Atlantic, Pacific, Hudson Bay or the Beaufort Sea) than Ft Benton is to where it reaches the sea (the Gulf).

Not without a canal. The great lakes don't drain into the gulf of Mexico, but rather gulf of St. Lawrence. You would also need to be able to sail up the Niagara falls.

from what i can tell its possible to get to lake nipigon via the illinois river and great lakes. almost the entire lake is more northerly than fort benton. only question i see is that there is a dam and Cameron falls on the way up to nipigon but it looks from satellite like the falls are man made.

otherwise, seems pretty navigable all the way from illinois river. currently accessible through navy pier to des plaines river to illinois river, or further south at little calumet to illinois river.

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.

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.

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.

[removed]

Screw a US road trip, I’m going on a US boat trip

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.

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.

Cool video that discusses how amazing the Mississippi watershed is: https://youtu.be/BubAF7KSs64

It's not about how far north it is its about how far inland it is. How far is it from the great Lakes to an ocean? Now how far is Montana? The Missouri River is the longest in North America on its own before reaching the Mississippi. We are talking about going from the Gulf nearly to Canada.

You would?

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

north end of lake nipigon is further from gulf than benton. i think we need to compare apples to apples. thats what i was trying to say.

Look up The Great Loop. I have family who have done it and it sounds awesome.

if indians could do it in canoes then so could pelt traders.

Yes. There seems to be a lot of confusion here about what this means so I'll try to clarify. This is the furthest boat trip you can take along natural waterways from the ocean to a point inland without crossing land or using a canal. Taking a boat all the way from the Gulf of Mexico, up the Mississippi, up the Missouri, and into Montana is a very far boat ride. You cannot do this further anywhere else on Earth without using a canal or taking your boat over land. I honestly didn't think this was such a confusing concept but apparently people think it is.

How far is it from the Atlantic? It's roughly 600km as the crow flies. That's not apples to apples.

[removed]

[removed]

You seem confused though, lake nipigon is not further from where it drains (out the st Lawrence into North Atlantic); that lake does not drain out the gulf so saying it’s further from the gulf is like comparing apples to bananas. Also, from that point you cannot navigate through natural waterways out to the ocean anyway, you need to use canals to get past Niagara Falls (and possible a few other points? Unsure about that). So no matter what it is not as far…not even close actually.

Back in the late 1800s you could take a steamboat all the way up the Colorado River and the Gila River and the Salt River to Phoenix in Arizona

Well, 1962 was 60 years ago.

It's entirely possible to get to the Mississippi from there - but not without canals or portaging.

ETA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Portage?wprov=sfti1

[removed]

[deleted]

Perhaps but montana to the gulf is farther than the Great Lakes to the gulf or Atlantic

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.

I understood exactly what it meant. The landlocked just don't understand the terminologies.

[removed]

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

I'd love more information on this but it's proving impossible to google. Got a link?

Yo… that’s awesome. Thanks for the idea!

I’m too broke and penniless now to do it, but I will get to it right when I’m old enough to die broke and penniless… shit

(Joke aside, that would be very cool to do and I’m going ti look into it further)

Three Men in a Boat: USA

By Jaxzyn K Jaxzyn

[removed]

It's not navigable this far anymore. Not since the Missouri River Dams were constructed in the mid 1900s.

Before the invention of trains, it was much, much cheaper to ship by water than over land. Think about how long it would take and how arduous it would be to travel 2,700 miles by horse and cart with no roads, versus how easy and relatively quick it would be to just float down a river. There's a reason basically every major human settlement before the invention of the train was accessible by water.

I still don’t get it. What makes a canal different from other bodies of water, and why would the furthest point you can go be a bridge that is already designed to let you go further?

The bridge isn't the very end of the navigable limit, it's just the last bridge that is needed to let boat traffic through on the navigable stretch. I assume the river becomes impassible not too far upstream from the bridge.

A canal is not natural and many of those we have today did not exist at the time referenced in this post. At the time this bridge was built, there was no point further from an ocean outlet that you could feasibly navigate a boat to without crossing land.

It's not true anymore since there's a shitload of canals elsewhere and there are dams on the Missouri river preventing moving further upstream.

[removed]

Thanks for pointing this out. There's no way around those things without a portage.

[removed]

Canals are manmade and it's just worded poorly.

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.

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?

[removed]

[removed]

[removed]

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.

[removed]

[removed]

I love how people on Reddit have to tell other people how dumb they are when they explain something.

[removed]

[removed]

[deleted]

[removed]

[removed]

[removed]

[removed]

Neat story, a bit disappointing that the article didn't show the swing span. This one has some better pictures and artwork.

https://bridgehunter.com/mt/chouteau/fort-benton/

[removed]

[removed]

[removed]

[removed]

[removed]

[removed]

Everywhere on earth is the furthest navigable point so far…

[removed]

Getting proper Red Dead Redemption vibes with this....

Even with the fur trade in Northern Canada, an area that is still pretty remote to this day and never had much in the way of rail they used canoes to transport furs instead of hiking it with horses.

There were fur traders in northern Canada back in the 1700’s, but they used canoes to explore and trade. Steam ships in the 1800’s were not that common in western Canada, as the waterways that far inland tend to be too shallow. I live in Canada relatively near Ft. Benton, but our rivers mostly drain to Hudson Bay. They tried steam ships on our rivers for a couple of years, but they were prone to run aground / partially sink if the rivers were a little low, so they stopped. The railway was also built around that time, which was far more effective.

[removed]

Thats around where the canal starts.

The actual portage was a swamp. It was only navigable after the rains in spring and dried up by fall.

You were on this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Sanitary_and_Ship_Canal

Have you heard of Hudson Bay? How far is it from hudson bay?

It looks pretty close the map. So its not too far inland.

[removed]

Most of the new york city elevated is that old. As long as you sand away any rust and paint it regularly, itll hold up.

>It was considered the furthest navigable point on Earth

Furthest from what? The caption doesn't make sense.

[removed]

[removed]

What about the Nile?

At what point is it not navigable?

[removed]

[removed]

[removed]

I used to live in Fort Benton, and I'm really confused by the caption.

Used to work in Fort Benton. There are still people who run from Great Falls all the way to the Gulf in Kayak and Canoe trips.

It's a neat little town, several cool museums. There are about 1500 people living in a very small area. There are no stop lights and only a few stop signs in the entire town.

Do yourself a favor and look up the Fort Benton story about the mule and the cannon for a good laugh.

The Missouri continues considerably further than that. Does that mean that it's not navigable, or that we've dredged it considerably since then?

[removed]

Aswan low dam, about 1000km/600mi. Maybe lower depending on the season

[removed]

[removed]

[removed]

[removed]

[removed]

canoes are still a form of trade right? i realize i'm speaking from a more theoretical viewpoint, but the basic premise of what i've been saying seems to hold true.

[removed]

Can we please have one thread where people don't just focus on one small inconsequential part of the headline and instead discuss the actual article?

It is worded kind of oddly, and it's not a phenomenon people usually think about.

I wonder what the largest boat can make it to this point? Clearly fairly large at this point since the bridge needs to move.

[removed]

The river is actually navigable for another ~120 miles, but there are restrictions on what type of boats can go because it's a national historic and scenic stretch of the river. At the end of that stretch is the Fort Peck Dam. So I guess if you went all the way in a kayak or a canoe you could conceivably go from the Gulf all the way to Fort Peck.

Why isn’t the Amazon or Nile a longer trip?

It’s actually not navigable up to this point anymore, since the river has been heavily dammed in Montana and the Dakotas

The Colorado river is full of rapids and waterfalls though, how could it have ever been navigable by steam?

Rivers were used because they were faster and easier to carry your supplies and your beaver pelts going back. Cheaper too since you didn't have acquire and feed horses and pack mules.

What you describe is down stream from fort benton. Upriver is the great falls of the Missouri.

You're right. I got confused on my directions, seeing as I've only ever floated downriver of Fort Benton. Whoops.

“I understood this, and I’m honestly not that smart, so if I have to explain to you, you’re a dunce.”

They put the steam on a boat.

Canoes were often portaged.

[removed]

Look up the definition of "navigable". It's very specific.

If we were talking about a single river they might be but we're talking about multiple rivers that are tributaries of one another.

The issue isn't the definition of the word navigable. The issue is that it doesn't tell us what that point is furthest from.

Are they trying to say that it's the navigable point furthest from the Gulf of Mexico? If so, that's just not true.

LOL, she asked me to prove something then blocked me.

Edit:

[https://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=E211US714G0&p=navigable] (of a waterway or sea, able to be sailed on by ships or boats)

There are waterways and seas that are able to be sailed on by ships or boats which are also further away from the Gulf of Mexico than 2,700 miles.

At the time, it was the furthest navigable point from the Gulf of Mexico. Traveling natural waterways inland away from the ocean waters.

It was true.

Prove it wasn't.

Its been discussed ad nauseum in this thread.

during the rainy season? i can point you to an indiana department of conservation area which has a sign saying that basically from that point, which was about 20ish miles southwest of south bend, indiana, along the yellow river, kankakee system and calumet system, an area of close to 1000 square miles of swamp existed before there was any white settlements.

i'll look for it online in a little while, and if need be, i'll drive there and take a picture. it probably included what we're talking about.

I love the idea of this! Hope I can do it one day!

Cool! I wanna try it too.

It is interesting! I wonder what it looks like.

When you say farthest navigable point, and don't say from what, or into what, the statement remains confusing. It's an impressive factoid to post, but just needed to be expanded upon for half a sentence.

I think back in the day they ran steamboats right up to Three Forks, where the Missouri River begins. Of course, those boats had a 20% or better chance of sinking before they got there, but the risk was well worth the reward up until the railroad came.

It was the furthest there are big dams on the Missouri now that block larger boats and barges from moving down the river, kinda a shame since it would be a lot more efficient then using trains to move all that grain from montana and the dakotas to port.

Does the Missouri not have locks like the Mississippi?

[removed]

I mean not much further. It terminates near three forks about a 3 hour drive south.

The did add one stop light and there is one going to the interstate east out of town

Welp, that's on my bucket list now.

You’re never too young to die broke and penniless!

Reading the Journals of Lewis and Clark, they apparently were able to navigate the Missouri up until a large waterfall that they had to portage around. Anyone familiar with that stretch of the Missouri would probably be able to name it.

There is no interstate near Fort Benton. US Highway 87 is the closest main highway.

Albany, Oregon used to have a similar bridge but it was made from wood. One of the spans would pivot 90 degrees so river boats could navigate by it.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/36241830@N06/4277720122/in/photostream/

Great Falls is roughly the location in Montana they had to portage around. They got extra screwed as that area is mostly cottonwood trees which aren’t very useful for portaging.

Up in Colorado it is. But in the last few hundred miles in Arizona past the grand canyon it is a normal lazy flowing river

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboats_of_the_Colorado_River?wprov=sfla1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboats_of_the_Colorado_River?wprov=sfla1

Yeah, in the book they described it as quite a challenge and apparently it took more time than they wanted to spend. Thanks for the info.

Sorry yeah you're correct, I meant the highway, there's a stop light on the highway.

[removed]

Someone describing a bridge as ‘handsome’ is certainly something I’d never thought I read haha

[removed]

No, trains replaced steam boats and barges on the river. That's part of the reason they built the bridge.