Powder River (Montana)
Powder River (Assiniboine: Caȟní wakpá ) is a tributary of the Yellowstone River, approximately 375 miles (604 km) long in the southeastern Montana and northeastern Wyoming in the United States. It drains an area historically known as the Powder River Country on the high plains east of the Bighorn Mountains.
It rises in three forks in eastern Wyoming. The North and Middle forks rise along the eastern slope of the Bighorn Mountains. The South Fork rises on the north slope of Garfield Peak in the Granite Mountains west of Casper. The three forks meet on the foothills east of the Bighorns near the town of Kaycee. The combined stream flows northward, east of the Bighorns, and into Montana. It is joined by the Little Powder near the town of Broadus, and joins the Yellowstone approximately 50 miles (80 km) downriver from Miles City, Montana. The Powder River was so named because the sand along a portion of its banks resembled gunpowder.
The Powder River Basin near the Montana/Wyoming border is a major source of low-sulfur coal mined in the United States.
Read more about Powder River (Montana): Variant Names
Famous quotes containing the words powder and/or river:
“Uncle Ben’s brass bullet-mould
And powder horn, and Major Bogan’s face
Above the fire, in the half-light, plainly said
There’s naught to kill but the animated dead;”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can’t go at dawn and not many places he can’t go at noon. But just as it demeans life to live alongside a great river you can no longer swim in or drink from, to be crowded into safer areas and hours takes much of the gloss off walking—one sport you shouldn’t have to reserve a time and a court for.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)