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:
“And now he comes again with clatter of stone,
And mounts the wall again with whited eyes
And all his tail that isn’t hair up straight.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“I cannot tell how many times we had to walk on account of falls or rapids. We were expecting all the while that the river would take a final leap and get to smooth water, but there was no improvement this forenoon.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)