St. Joseph River (Lake Michigan) - History

History

Early European explorers found Miami and Potawatomi peoples living near the mouth of the St. Joseph River at the site of present-day St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. The original Miami name for the river was Sakiwäsipi. In 1654, Médard Chouart des Groseilliers of France and a French companion were the first Europeans to travel the river. In 1675 Père Jacques Marquette had come up from the Mississippi River via the Illinois River, then to the Kankakee River and portaged to the St. Joseph River near modern-day South Bend, Indiana and then down to Lake Michigan. On November 1, 1679 René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle sailed southeast across Lake Michigan and built Fort Miami at the mouth of the river. La Salle named the river La Rivière des Miamis (River of the Miamis).

At the end of 1679, La Salle reversed the path taken by Marquette; he explored up the St. Joseph River and portaged to the Kankakee River, exploring as far west on the Illinois River as modern-day Peoria, Illinois, before returning to Fort Miami. After giving up on the return of his ship, the Griffin, in April 1680, he became the first European to walk east across the Lower Peninsula of Michigan back to the Detroit River and Canada.

The river was one of the most significant early transportation routes for thousands of years for the Native Americans, followed by the early French fur trappers in the Illinois Country. See Canadian Canoe Routes (early). Two different portages allowed nearly continuous travel by canoe among different watersheds of the region. The first major transfer point was at the headwaters in southwestern Michigan, where travelers could make a portage to the St. Joseph River of the Maumee River watershed, which drained into Lake Erie.

The second major transfer point was at South Bend, Indiana, where a short portage to the nearby Kankakee River allowed access to the Illinois River and subsequently to the Mississippi.

Another major access point along river was at Niles, Michigan, where the Old Sauk Trail, a major east-west Indian trail, crossed the river. The French established Fort St. Joseph there in 1691.

European American settlement of the St. Joseph river basin area began to increase after southwestern Michigan was surveyed in 1829. From the early 1830s until 1846, the river bore various commodities from upstream to a busy port at St. Joseph, where they were loaded onto lake boats for shipment to Chicago and elsewhere.

On April 11, 1893, a Lake Michigan seiche (a phenomenon similar to an ocean tsunami) pushed a wall of water, 3 to 5 feet (0.91 to 1.5 m) high, up the river at St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. This raised the level of the river by 4 to 5 feet (1.2 to 1.5 m). The cause of the seiche was unknown, but has been attributed to a sudden squall or change in atmospheric pressure.

In 1984, the abandoned East Race canal in South Bend, whose outlets were both at the river, was converted into the East Race Waterway 41°40′34″N 86°14′42″W / 41.676°N 86.245°W / 41.676; -86.245, North America's first artificial whitewater waterway and the first of four in the United States. Through the use of movable barriers and obstacles, the East Race provides a configurable whitewater course for recreational and competitive canoeing, kayaking and rafting.