The Shoshone River is a long river in northern
Wyoming
Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the sou ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
. Its headwaters are in the
Absaroka Range in
Shoshone National Forest. It ends when it runs into the
Big Horn River
The Bighorn River is a tributary of the Yellowstone, approximately long, in the states of Wyoming and Montana in the western United States. The river was named in 1805 by fur trader François Larocque for the bighorn sheep he saw along its ban ...
near
Lovell, Wyoming. Cities it runs near or through are
Cody,
Powell
Powell may refer to:
People
* Powell (surname)
* Powell (given name)
* Powell baronets, several baronetcies
*Colonel Powell (disambiguation), several military officers
*General Powell (disambiguation), several military leaders
*Governor Powell (di ...
,
Byron, and Lovell. Near Cody, it runs through a volcanically active region of
fumaroles known as
Colter's Hell.
This contributed to the river being named on old maps of Wyoming as the ''Stinking Water River''.
The current name was established in 1901 due to popular demand.
West of Cody the river is impounded in Shoshone Canyon by the
Buffalo Bill Dam, created as part of the
Shoshone project; one of the nation's first water conservation projects. A number of hot springs along the Shoshone were drowned by the reservoir.
Upstream of Buffalo Bill Reservoir the Shoshone splits into the North Fork, which follows a long canyon down from the
Absaroka Mountains to the vicinity of the east entrance of
Yellowstone National Park, and the South Fork, which originates at the southern end of the Absarokas.
See also
*
Mummy Cave, an alcove eroded into a cliff face by the North Fork of the Shoshone that has yielded evidence of 9000 years of occupation
*
Shoshonite
References
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Rivers of Wyoming
Tributaries of the Yellowstone River
Rivers of Park County, Wyoming
Rivers of Big Horn County, Wyoming