The Wallowa River is a tributary of the
Grande Ronde River, approximately long, in northeastern
Oregon
Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
. It drains a valley on the
Columbia Plateau
The Columbia Plateau is an important geology, geologic and geography, geographic region that lies across parts of the U.S. states of Washington (state), Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. It is a wide flood basalt plateau between the Cascade Range a ...
in the northeast corner of the state north of
Wallowa Mountains
The Wallowa Mountains () are a mountain range located in the Columbia Plateau of northeastern Oregon in the United States. The range runs approximately northwest to southeast in southwestern Wallowa County and eastern Union County between the ...
.
The Wallowa Valley was home to
Chief Joseph
''Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt'' (or ''hinmatóowyalahtq̓it'' in Americanist orthography; March 3, 1840 – September 21, 1904), popularly known as Chief Joseph, Young Joseph, or Joseph the Younger, was a leader of the wal-lam-wat-kain (Wallowa) ...
's band of the
Nez Perce
The Nez Perce (; autonym in Nez Perce language: , meaning 'we, the people') are an Indigenous people of the Plateau who still live on a fraction of the lands on the southeastern Columbia River Plateau in the Pacific Northwest. This region h ...
Tribe. Chief Joseph asked the first white settlers to leave when they arrived in 1871.
The
U.S. government expelled the tribe and seized their property and livestock in 1877,
when non-Indian farmers and ranchers wanted to settle the fertile Wallowa valley. The tribe was barred from returning to their homeland by the government after repeated petitions. The tribal members were shipped in unheated box cars to
Indian Territory
Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...
(now Oklahoma) to be placed in a prisoner-of-war camp never to see their home again.
Course
The river begins at the confluence of its east and west forks, which rise in southern
Wallowa County, in the
Eagle Cap Wilderness of the
Wallowa–Whitman National Forest. It flows generally northwest through the Wallowa Valley, parallel to the
McCully Basin which is East of the ridge formed from East Peak, Hidden Peak and
Aneroid Mountain. At this point, the West Fork of the Wallowa River
drainage basin
A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...
is connected to the North Fork of the
Imnaha River by the
Polaris Pass drainage divide
A drainage divide, water divide, ridgeline, watershed, water parting or height of land is elevated terrain that separates neighboring drainage basins. On rugged land, the divide lies along topographical ridges, and may be in the form of a single ...
.
It then flows past the communities of
Joseph
Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...
,
Enterprise
Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to:
Business and economics
Brands and enterprises
* Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company
* Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company
* Enterpris ...
, and
Wallowa. Further upstream it receives the
Minam River from the
left
Left may refer to:
Music
* ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006
* ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016
* ''Left'' (Helmet album), 2023
* "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996
Direction
* Left (direction), the relativ ...
at the hamlet of
Minam. Continuing north another , it joins the Grande Ronde along the Wallowa–
Union county line about north-northeast of
Elgin and about from the larger river's confluence with the
Snake River
The Snake River is a major river in the interior Pacific Northwest region of the United States. About long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, which is the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean. Begin ...
.
Fish
The Wallowa River supports populations of
steelhead
Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the Fish migration#Classification, anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or Columbia River redband trout (''O. m. gairdneri'', also called redband steelhead). Steelhead are native to cold-wa ...
, spring
Chinook salmon
The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Oncorhynchus, Pacific salmon. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other vernacular names for the species include king salmon, quinn ...
, and
mountain whitefish among other species.
Sockeye salmon were extirpated from the Wallowa River when a small dam was constructed at the outlet of Wallowa Lake in the headwaters of the river. The dam was constructed to raise the level of the lake to store water for irrigation.
See also
*
List of longest streams of Oregon
*
List of rivers of Oregon
References
External links
Grande Ronde Model WatershedNational Wild and Scenic Rivers System
*
{{authority control
Rivers of Oregon
Nez Perce War
Wild and Scenic Rivers of the United States
Rivers of Wallowa County, Oregon