The Tucannon River is a tributary of the

Snake River The Snake River is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest region in the United States. At long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, in turn, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean. The Snake ...

in the U.S. state of

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. It flows generally northwest from headwaters in the Blue Mountains of southeastern Washington to meet the Snake upstream from

Lyons Ferry Park Lyons Ferry State Park is a public recreation area located near the confluence of the Snake and Palouse rivers, northwest of Starbuck, Washington. The state park is on Route 261 abreast of Lake Herbert G. West, a reservoir on the Snake Ri ...

and the mouth of the

Palouse River The Palouse River is a tributary of the Snake River in Washington and Idaho, in the northwest United States. It flows for U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 3, 2011 southw ...

. The Tucannon is about long. Part of the upper river flows through the Wenaha–Tucannon Wilderness.

Watershed

The Tucannon basin of ranges in elevation from about above sea level at the

mouth In animal anatomy, the mouth, also known as the oral cavity, or in Latin cavum oris, is the opening through which many animals take in food and issue vocal sounds. It is also the cavity lying at the upper end of the alimentary canal, bounded on ...

on the Snake River to about in the

Umatilla National Forest The Umatilla National Forest, in the Blue Mountains of northeast Oregon and southeast Washington, covers an area of 1.4 million acres (5,700 km2). In descending order of land area the forest is located in parts of Umatilla, Grant, Columbia ...

of the Blue Mountains. River flows in the Tucannon basin depend solely on precipitation and groundwater. Studies in the early 1990s suggested that these flows would not be able to meet all of the claims, public and private, on the water resources of the lower river. In particular, farm irrigation projects were competing with fisheries for limited water. The

Washington Department of Ecology The Washington State Department of Ecology (sometimes referred to simply as "Ecology") is the state of Washington's environmental regulatory agency. Created in February 1970, it was the first environmental regulation agency in the U.S. predating t ...

named the Tucannon basin a Watershed Resource Inventory Area (WRIA) and in 1995 began hearings about how to allocate the water.

History

Native peoples

The lower Snake River was home to bands of the

Palouse The Palouse ( ) is a distinct geographic region of the northwestern United States, encompassing parts of north central Idaho, southeastern Washington, and, by some definitions, parts of northeast Oregon. It is a major agricultural area, primar ...

and other Sahaptin-speaking people, including Nez Perce, Yakama, Walla Walla, Umatilla, and Wanapum. The Blue Mountains formed the western part of a region traditional to the aboriginal Nimi'ipuu people, renamed Nez Perce by

Lewis and Clark Lewis may refer to: Names * Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname Music * Lewis (musician), Canadian singer * "Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohead ...

when they arrived in the region in 1805. The horse was central to the lives of both the Palouse and the Nez Perce. The Nez Perce Trail followed part of the

Touchet Touchet is a surname, and may refer to: Members of the English peerage: * James Touchet, 5th Baron Audley, (c. 1398–1459) * George Thicknesse-Touchet, 19th Baron Audley (1758–1818) ** George Thicknesse-Touchet, 20th Baron Audley, (1783–1837) ...

and Tucannon rivers, extending east from

Wallula Wallula () is a census-designated place (CDP) in Walla Walla County, Washington, United States. The population was 179 at the 2010 census. History The Lewis and Clark Expedition reached this area April 27, 1806, on their return journey from the ...

and reaching the Touchet below Waitsburg. From there it followed the southern bank of the Touchet River to present day

Dayton Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...

. Here it crossed the river and followed Patit Creek northeast.

Lewis and Clark expedition

On October 12, 1805, after a difficult passage through Snake River rapids, Lewis and Clark passed through a shorter rapids just east of the mouth of the Tucannon. Lewis wrote, "This we called called Kimooenim creek". The expedition did not stop, but continued down the Snake in dugouts. On their return trip to St. Louis on May 2, 1806, Lewis and Clark followed the Nez Perce Trail, crossing over from Patit Creek about east of present-day Dayton to meet the Tucannon. Only beyond their campsite they reached the stream. Lewis and Clark camped on the Pataha Creek (a tributary to the Tucannon), which is recorded as the first locality for some distance where they were able to find ample firewood.

British fur trade

The fur industry was important in the region. The Tucannon River provided a profitable area for beaver and otter trapping, which were abundant. F. A. Shaver's 1906 book, ''An Illustrated History of Southeastern Washington'', said that prior to 1834 the British

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...

(HBC) (the British fur-trading company) personnel were "undisputed occupants since 1829." A party was led by John Work, who served as an agent of the HBC. Starting from Fort Nez Perce in September 1831, Work and a 56-person party followed the Nez Perce Trail to the Upper Snake River country.

American survey and settlement

In the late winter of 1834, Captain

Benjamin Bonneville Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville (April 14, 1796 – June 12, 1878) was an American officer in the United States Army, fur trapper, and explorer in the American West. He is noted for his expeditions to the Oregon Country and the Great Basin, a ...

crossed the Tucannon on the Nez Perce Trail, surveying the Northwest on behalf of the United States government. A number of wagon roads were built through the area in the 1860s (including one between

Walla Walla, Washington Walla Walla is a city in Walla Walla County, Washington, where it is the largest city and county seat. It had a population of 34,060 at the 2020 census, estimated to have decreased to 33,927 as of 2021. The population of the city and its two su ...

, and

Lewiston, Idaho Lewiston is a city and the county seat of Nez Perce County, Idaho, United States, in the state's north central region. It is the second-largest city in the northern Idaho region, behind Coeur d'Alene, and ninth-largest in the state. Lewiston is ...

, in 1862). Settlers slowly drifted into the Tucannon River area in the 1860s, but in the early 1870s settlement rapidly increased.

Cayuse War

In 1848, during the

Cayuse War The Cayuse War was an armed conflict that took place in the Northwestern United States from 1847 to 1855 between the Cayuse people of the region and the United States Government and local American settlers. Caused in part by the influx of disease ...

Captain Lawrence Hall's Company fought an engagement with the Cayuse on the Tucannon River:

Coeur d'Alene War

During the Coeur d'Alene War on August 7, 1858, Captain

Erasmus D. Keyes Erasmus Darwin Keyes (May 29, 1810 – October 14, 1895) was a businessman, banker, and military general, noted for leading the IV Corps of the Union Army of the Potomac during the first half of the American Civil War. Early life and career Keye ...

with a detachment of dragoons was ordered to the Snake River to erect a fort at a crossing point near the Palouse River. He selected the mouth of Tucannon River to establish

Fort Taylor A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

(a supply depot which honored Captain Oliver H. P. Taylor—killed that same year while he served with Lt. Colonel Edward Steptoe against the Spokanes in April. On August 25 this point served as a crossing point for Colonel

George Wright George Wright may refer to: Politics, law and government * George Wright (MP) (died 1557), MP for Bedford and Wallingford * George Wright (governor) (1779–1842), Canadian politician, lieutenant governor of Prince Edward Island * George Wright ...

, who led a force of 570 men across the Snake. It took several days to find a path to ascend from the Snake valley into the badlands above; this journey led them to the

Battle of Four Lakes The Battle of Four Lakes was a battle during the Coeur d'Alene War of 1858 in the Washington Territory (now the states of Washington and Idaho) in the United States. The Coeur d'Alene War was part of the Yakima War, which began in 1855. The bat ...

on September 5.

Later

The railroad town of Starbuck on the Tucannon River was incorporated in the 1880s. In its early years Starbuck was a division point on the main line of the

Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (OR&N) was a railroad that operated a rail network of running east from Portland, Oregon, United States, to northeastern Oregon, northeastern Washington, and northern Idaho. It operated from 1896 as a ...

. At one time up to 24 trains a day went through the town.

Little Goose Dam Little Goose Lock and Dam is a hydroelectric, concrete, run-of-the-river dam in the northwest United States, on the lower Snake River in southeast Washington. At the dam, the river is the border between Columbia and Whitman counties; it is ...

, which became operational in 1975 was near Starbuck. It temporarily boosted the local population and labor force greatly as construction workers and their families moved into the town. Blue Sky Wind built the Hopkins Ridge Wind Farm in Columbia County in 2005. Peak output from the project, bought by

Puget Sound Energy Puget Sound Energy (PSE) is an energy utility company based in the U.S. state of Washington that provides electrical power and natural gas to the Puget Sound region. The utility serves electricity to more than 1.1 million customers in Island, ...

and transmitted by the

Bonneville Power Administration The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is an American federal agency operating in the Pacific Northwest. BPA was created by an act of Congress in 1937 to market electric power from the Bonneville Dam located on the Columbia River and to cons ...

, is 150

megawatts The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wat ...

(MW).

Recreation

All tributaries of the Tucannon River are closed to fishing, and sections of the Tucannon River are also closed to protect four federally listed

threatened Threatened species are any species (including animals, plants and fungi) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of '' critical depe ...

and

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...

fish species: spring/summer and fall

chinook salmon The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Pacific salmon in North America, as well as the largest in the genus '' Oncorhynchus''. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other ...

as well as

bull trout The bull trout (''Salvelinus confluentus'') is a char of the family Salmonidae native to northwestern North America. Historically, ''S. confluentus'' has been known as the " Dolly Varden" (''S. malma''), but was reclassified as a separate speci ...

and

steelhead Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and ...

. The areas which are closed protect the main

spawning Spawn is the eggs and sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of releasing the eggs and sperm, and the act of both sexes is called spawning. Most aquatic animals, except for aquat ...

grounds.U.S. Forest Service Summary of Recreational Opportunities, 2004, copy available a

/ref> Steelhead may be caught, following prescribed fishing restrictions. The accessible areas of the Tucannon River are popular fishing areas. The Tucannon winds through national forest, state, and private lands, some of which are in stretches open to fishing. There are eight fishing ponds open to public fishing developed by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and routinely stocked. Rainbow, Deer, Blue, Spring, Curl, Beaver, Watson and fly fishing-only Big Four Lake make up these trout-catching opportunities. Fishing access can also be gained at the Tucannon Fish Hatchery, where the river is bordered by state or national forest land. The Tucannon Campground is operated by the United States Forest Service, U.S. Forest Service in the Tucannon River Valley as one of 15 campgrounds in the Pomeroy Ranger District.

Washington State Parks The Washington State Park System is a set of State park, state parks owned by the state government of Washington (state), Washington, United States, USA. They are managed by the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission. There are over 140 ...

operates Camp Wooten Retreat Center on the upper Tucannon River. The center, near Pomeroy, offers cabins, dining and meeting halls, and other accommodations for large groups. Activities include hiking, canoeing on Donnie Lake, swimming in an indoor pool, archery, softball, tennis, and basketball.

References

{{authority control Rivers of Washington (state) Lewis and Clark Expedition Tributaries of the Snake River Rivers of Columbia County, Washington Rivers of Garfield County, Washington