The Otter Tail River is a 192-mile-long (309 km) river in the west-central portion of the U.S. state of Minnesota. It begins in Clearwater County, 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Bemidji. It then flows through a number of lakes and cities in Minnesota, including Elbow Lake, Many Point Lake, Chippewa Lake, Height of Land Lake, Frazee, the Pine lakes, Rush Lake, Otter Tail Lake and Ottertail, West Lost Lake, Fergus Falls, and Orwell Lake.
At its mouth, it joins with the Bois de Sioux River to form the Red River at Wahpeton, North Dakota. The Red River is the Minnesota-North Dakota boundary from this point onward to the Canadian border. Waters of the Red River watershed ultimately flow north into Hudson Bay.
Five dams were built on the Otter Tail River in the Fergus Falls area between 1909 and 1925 by the Otter Tail Power Company. They are Taplin Gorge (1925), Hoot Lake (1914), Central / Wright (1871 / 1922), Pisgah (1918), and Dayton Hollow (1909).
Famous quotes containing the words tail and/or river:
“You always strain tuh be de bell cow, never be de tail uh nothin’.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“There are knives that glitter like altars
In a dark church
Where they bring the cripple and the imbecile
To be healed.
There’s a woden block where bones are broken,
Scraped clean—a river dried to its bed”
—Charles Simic (b. 1938)