View of Trinity River from Reunion Tower August 2015 07

The Trinity River is a river, the longest with a watershed entirely within the U.S. state of Texas. It rises in extreme northern Texas, a few miles south of the Red River. The headwaters are separated by the high bluffs on the southern side of the Red River. Indigenous peoples call the northern sections ''Arkikosa'' and the parts closer to the coast ''Daycoa''. French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle, in 1687, named it ''Riviere des canoës'' ("River of Canoes"). In 1690 Spanish explorer

Alonso de León Alonso de León "El Mozo" (c. 1639–1691) was explorer and governor, who led several expeditions into the area that is now northeastern Mexico and southern Texas. Early life Alonso de León González was born in 1639, in the settlement of Cade ...

named the river ''"La Santísima Trinidad"'' ("the Most Holy Trinity"), in the Spanish Catholic practice of memorializing places by religious references.

Course

Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge at Trinity River

The Trinity River has four branches: the West Fork, the Clear Fork, the Elm Fork, and the East Fork. The West Fork Trinity River has its headwaters in

Archer County Archer County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 8,560. Its county seat is Archer City. It is part of the Wichita Falls metropolitan statistical area. History In 1858, the Texas Legislat ...

. From there it flows southeast, through the man-made reservoirs Lake Bridgeport and Eagle Mountain Lake, and eastward through Lake Worth and the city of

Fort Worth Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...

. The Clear Fork Trinity River begins north of Weatherford, Texas, and flows southeastward through

Lake Weatherford A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a Depression (geology), basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the World Ocean, oce ...

and Benbrook Lake reservoirs. It flows northeastward, where it joins the West Fork near downtown Fort Worth and continues as the West Fork. The Elm Fork Trinity River flows south from near Gainesville through Ray Roberts Lake and east of the city of Denton, eventually through Lewisville Lake. The West Fork and the Elm Fork merge as they enter the city of Dallas. The East Fork Trinity River (on old maps the Bois d'Arc River) begins near McKinney, Texas, and flows through Lavon Lake and then Lake Ray Hubbard before joining the Trinity River just southeast of Dallas. The Trinity flows southeast from Dallas across a fertile floodplain and the pine forests of eastern Texas. This area gained in population during the period of the

Republic of Texas The Republic of Texas ( es, República de Tejas) was a sovereign state in North America that existed from March 2, 1836, to February 19, 1846, that bordered Mexico, the Republic of the Rio Grande in 1840 (another breakaway republic from Mex ...

; it had not been extensively settled by Mexican residents before that, although many Tejanas have deep roots here. The Trinity crosses Texas State Highway 31 in Henderson County, near where the first county seat, Buffalo, was established. Roughly north of the mouth on Galveston Bay, an earthen dam was built in 1968 to form

Lake Livingston Lake Livingston is a reservoir located in the East Texas Piney Woods. Lake Livingston was built and is owned and operated by the Trinity River Authority (TRA) of Texas under contract with the City of Houston for water-supply purposes. The lake is ...

. The river empties into Trinity Bay, an arm of

Galveston Bay Galveston Bay ( ) is a bay in the western Gulf of Mexico along the upper coast of Texas. It is the seventh-largest estuary in the United States, and the largest of seven major estuaries along the Texas Gulf Coast. It is connected to the Gulf of ...

that is an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico. Its

river mouth A river mouth is where a river flows into a larger body of water, such as another river, a lake/reservoir, a bay/gulf, a sea, or an ocean. At the river mouth, sediments are often deposited due to the slowing of the current reducing the carrying ...

is near the town of Anahuac, southeast of Houston.

Tributaries

*Clear Fork of the Trinity River *East Fork of the Trinity River (Bois d'Arc River) *Elm Fork of the Trinity River *

West Fork of the Trinity River West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

Bachman Branch Bachman Branch (also Bachman Creek) is the name of a medium-sized tributary of the Trinity River with headwaters in northwest Dallas, Texas (USA). The tributary is in length and rises at Forest Lane, west of the Dallas North Tollway. It runs ...

* Cedar Creek *

Mountain Creek Mountain Creek is a ski resort in Vernon Township, Sussex County, New Jersey, United States. It is located on New Jersey Route 94, from the George Washington Bridge. Mountain Creek contains of skiing area, night skiing, snowboarding, a ...

Fossil Creek (Texas) Fossil Creek ( yuf-x-yav, Hakhavsuwa or ) is a perennial stream accessed by forest roads near the community of Camp Verde in the U.S. state of Arizona. Primary access is from Forest Road 708 off Arizona State Route 260 east of Camp Verde. A t ...

* Johnson Creek * Red Oak Creek * Richland Creek *

White Rock Creek White Rock Creek is a creek occupying a chain of four sub-watersheds within the Trinity River watershed. From its source near Frisco, Texas at , this creek runs south-by-south-east through suburban Dallas for where it widens into White Rock ...

Rowlett Creek Rowlett Creek is a creek that flows through Collin, Dallas and Rockwall Counties in Texas. Course The creek rises west of McKinney and flows south-east through Rowlett Creek Park before passing under the Sam Rayburn Tollway and into Plano ...

*Big Creek *Fourmile Creek *Five Mile Creek *Ten Mile Creek * Sycamore Creek *Marine Creek

Public works projects

Plans from the 1890s for a shipping channel along the length of the Trinity River were scrapped because it would have required extensive dredging to make the river navigable, although several overpasses were built with very high clearances in anticipation of the shipping channel. Locks were actually built 13 miles downstream of Dallas in the early 1900s. Original federal plans called for building 36 locks and dams from Trinity Bay near Houston to Dallas. The first built was Lock and Dam No. 1 in the city of Dallas at McCommas Bluff, directly west of Lincoln Memorial Cemetery. Lock construction came to a standstill in the wake of World War I, however. Only Lock and Dam Nos. 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 20 and 25 were built. There are currently no plans for addressing these old locks located in various spots along the Trinity River. However, the Corps is working nearby on the Dallas Floodway Extension Project. The DFE Project is under construction and is helping to fulfill their mission, as directed by Congress in cooperation with the city of Dallas. It is helping to lower flood risk, and provide ecosystem restoration and recreation to the citizens of Dallas. The Trinity River Corridor Project is intended to transform the Trinity River flood zone in downtown Dallas into the nation's largest urban park, featuring three signature bridges designed by acclaimed architect Santiago Calatrava. A similar project is planned by the Tarrant Regional Water District, City of Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Streams & Valleys Inc., and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop an area north of "downtown" as "uptown" along the Trinity River. This plan promotes a large

mixed-use development Mixed-use is a kind of urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning type that blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space, where those functions are to some ...

adjacent to the central city area of Fort Worth, with a goal to prevent urban sprawl by promoting the growth of a healthy, vibrant urban core. The Trinity River Vision lays the groundwork to enable

's central business district to double in size over the next forty years.

Floods and flood protection

Major flooding occurred on the Trinity River in the years 1844, 1866, 1871, and 1890, but a major event in the spring of 1908 set in motion the harnessing of the river. On 26 May 1908, the Trinity River reached a depth of and a width of . Five people died, 4,000 were left homeless, and property damage was estimated at $2.5 million. Dallas was without power for three days, all telephone and telegraph service was down, and rail service was canceled. The only way to reach Oak Cliff was by boat.Dallas Historical Society

. Retrieved 20 April 2006. West Dallas was hit harder than any other part of the city—the ''

Dallas Times Herald The ''Dallas Times Herald'', founded in 1888 by a merger of the ''Dallas Times'' and the ''Dallas Herald'', was once one of two major daily newspapers serving the Dallas, Texas (USA) area. It won three Pulitzer Prizes, all for photography, and t ...

'' said "indescribable suffering" plagued the area. Much to the horror of residents, thousands of livestock drowned in the flood and some became lodged in the tops of trees. The stench of their decay hung over the city as the water subsided. After the disastrous flood, the city's citizenry wanted to find a way to control the unpredictable Trinity River and to build a bridge linking Oak Cliff and Dallas. The immediate reaction was clamor to build an indestructible, all-weather crossing over the Trinity. This had already been tried following the 1890 flood; the result was the "Long Wooden Bridge" that connected Jefferson Boulevard in Oak Cliff and Cadiz in Dallas, but the resulting unstable bridge was easily washed away by the 1908 flood.

George B. Dealey George Bannerman Dealey (September 18, 1859 – February 26, 1946) was a Dallas, Texas, businessman. Dealey was the long-time publisher of '' The Dallas Morning News'' and owner of the A. H. Belo Corporation. A plaza in Dallas is named in ...

, publisher of the ''

Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885 by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ''Galvesto ...

'', proposed a concrete bridge based on the design of a bridge crossing the Missouri River in

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

. Ultimately, a US$650,000 (US$ in today's terms) bond election was approved and in 1912, the Oak Cliff Viaduct (now the Houston Street Viaduct) was opened with festivities that drew 58,000 spectators. At that time, the bridge was the longest concrete structure in the world. Trinity Flooded June 2015

Following from the 1908 flooding, levees were first constructed in 1932. They were heightened in 1960 to the 30 ft that has been maintained to the early 21st century. Current plans to improve the existing levees are part of what is known as the

Dallas Floodway Extension Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County wit ...

project and the Trinity River Project. They entail extending two existing levees and raising two others, all adjacent to the downtown Dallas area. Downtown Dallas also suffered severe flooding in 1990. Minor flooding of the Trinity River occurs frequently, such as, for instance, in the spring of 2015 and summer of 2022.

References