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 how do you know that you’re mad?”
“To begin with,” the Cat said, “a dog’s not mad. You grant that?”
“I suppose so,” said Alice.
“Well then,” the Cat went on, “you see a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“Come, heart, where hill is heaped upon hill:
For there the mystical brotherhood
Of sun and moon and hollow and wood
And river and stream work out their will....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)