Kaweah River
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The Kaweah River is a river draining the southern
Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...
in
Tulare County Tulare County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 473,117. The county seat is Visalia. The county is named for Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes. ...
,
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
in the United States. Fed primarily by high elevation snowmelt along the
Great Western Divide The Great Western Divide is a Sierra Nevada mountain range that forms part of the border between the Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. Some of the summits of the Great Western Divide reach well over . The High Sierra Trail crosses the ra ...
, the Kaweah begins as four forks in
Sequoia National Park Sequoia National Park is an American national park in the southern Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California. The park was established on September 25, 1890, and today protects of forested mountainous terrain. Encompassing ...
, where the watershed is noted for its alpine scenery and its dense concentrations of
giant sequoia ''Sequoiadendron giganteum'' (giant sequoia; also known as giant redwood, Sierra redwood, Sierran redwood, California big tree, Wellingtonia or simply big treea nickname also used by John Muir) is the sole living species in the genus ''Sequoiade ...
s, the largest trees on Earth. It then flows in a southwest direction to
Lake Kaweah Lake Kaweah is a reservoir near Lemon Cove in Tulare County, California. The lake is formed by Terminus Dam on the Kaweah River. The river originates in the Sierra Nevada and drains about into Lake Kaweah before flowing towards the San Joaquin ...
– the only major
reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...
on the river – and into the
San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven c ...
, where it diverges into multiple channels across an
alluvial plain An alluvial plain is a largely flat landform created by the deposition of sediment over a long period of time by one or more rivers coming from highland regions, from which alluvial soil forms. A floodplain is part of the process, being the sma ...
around
Visalia Visalia ( ) is a city in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley of California. The population was 141,384 as per the 2020 census. Visalia is the fifth-largest city in the San Joaquin Valley, the 42nd most populous in California, and 192nd in ...
. With its Middle Fork headwaters starting at almost above sea level, the river has a vertical drop of nearly on its short run to the San Joaquin Valley, making it one of the steepest river drainages in the United States. Although the
main stem In hydrology, a mainstem (or trunk) is "the primary downstream segment of a river, as contrasted to its tributaries". Water enters the mainstem from the river's drainage basin, the land area through which the mainstem and its tributaries flow.. A ...
of the Kaweah is only long, its total length including headwaters and lower branches is nearly . The lower course of the river and its many
distributaries A distributary, or a distributary channel, is a stream that branches off and flows away from a main stream channel. Distributaries are a common feature of river deltas. The phenomenon is known as river bifurcation. The opposite of a distributary ...
– including the
St. John's River The St. Johns River ( es, Río San Juan) is the longest river in the U.S. state of Florida and its most significant one for commercial and recreational use. At long, it flows north and winds through or borders twelve counties. The drop in eleva ...
and Mill Creek – form the Kaweah Delta, a productive agricultural region spanning more than . Before the diversion of its waters for
irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow Crop, crops, Landscape plant, landscape plants, and Lawn, lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,00 ...
, the river flowed into
Tulare Lake Tulare Lake () (Spanish: ''Laguna de Tache'', Yokuts: ''Pah-áh-su'') is a freshwater dry lake with residual wetlands and marshes in the southern San Joaquin Valley, California, United States. After Lake Cahuilla disappeared in the 17th century ...
, the now dry terminal sink of a large
endorheic basin An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...
in the southern San Joaquin Valley, also fed by the
Kern KERN (1180 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Wasco-Greenacres, California, and serving the Bakersfield metropolitan area. The station is owned by American General Media. The radio studios and offices are in the American General Me ...
and
Tule ''Schoenoplectus acutus'' ( syn. ''Scirpus acutus, Schoenoplectus lacustris, Scirpus lacustris'' subsp. ''acutus''), called tule , common tule, hardstem tule, tule rush, hardstem bulrush, or viscid bulrush, is a giant species of sedge in the pl ...
Rivers and southern branches of the Kings River. The
Yokuts The Yokuts (previously known as MariposasPowell, 1891:90–91.) are an ethnic group of Native Americans native to central California. Before European contact, the Yokuts consisted of up to 60 tribes speaking several related languages. ''Yokuts ...
and
Western Mono The Mono ( ) are a Native American people who traditionally live in the central Sierra Nevada, the Eastern Sierra (generally south of Bridgeport), the Mono Basin, and adjacent areas of the Great Basin. The Eastern mono is often grouped under th ...
are the main Native American groups in the Kaweah River basin, which was explored by the Spanish in the early 1800s and heavily logged after the 1850s by American colonists, before its upper reaches became part of Sequoia National Park in 1890.


Etymology

The name "Kaweah" (commonly rendered as ; the traditional pronunciation is ) comes from a native Yokutsan
ethnonym An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...
for the Kaweah tribelet, traditionally said to mean "crow cry," from ''gá'' "raven" and ''wea'' "to weep."
Frank F. Latta Frank Forrest Latta (1892–1983), was a California historian and ethnographer of the Yokuts people. He also wrote histories of the early European-American settlement of the San Joaquin Valley. Early life Frank Forrest Latta was the son of Presbyte ...
traced the etymology of ''gá'' to an onomatopoeia of a
corvid Corvidae is a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan family (biology), family of oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, rook (bird), rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs, and nutcracker (bird), nutcrackers. In coll ...
's call,
cf. The abbreviation ''cf.'' (short for the la, confer/conferatur, both meaning "compare") is used in writing to refer the reader to other material to make a comparison with the topic being discussed. Style guides recommend that ''cf.'' be used onl ...
"caw". An informant for Latta, Aida Icho, provided an idiom related to the allegedly quarrelsome nature of the (by then extinct) Kaweah:


Course

The Kaweah River originates along the
Great Western Divide The Great Western Divide is a Sierra Nevada mountain range that forms part of the border between the Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. Some of the summits of the Great Western Divide reach well over . The High Sierra Trail crosses the ra ...
, a chain of peaks in the middle of Sequoia National Park. The divide separates the Kaweah drainage from the
Kern River The Kern River, previously Rio de San Felipe, later La Porciuncula, is an Endangered, Wild and Scenic river in the U.S. state of California, approximately long. It drains an area of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains northeast of Bakersfiel ...
drainage to the east. The Middle Fork, sometimes considered part of the main stem, flows southwest from the confluence of Lone Pine Creek and Hamilton Creek, whose lake sources lie at or above in the
Mount Stewart Mount Stewart is a 19th-century house and garden in County Down, Northern Ireland, owned by the National Trust. Situated on the east shore of Strangford Lough, a few miles outside the town of Newtownards and near Greyabbey, it was the Irish s ...
area. The Marble Fork begins in a high plateau area known as the Tableland and drops over a glacial
headwall In physical geography and geology the headwall of a glacial cirque is its highest cliff. The term has been more broadly used to describe similar geomorphic features of non-glacial origin consisting of a concave depression with convergent slopes ty ...
, forming Tokopah Falls, before flowing west past Lodgepole Village and turning south. The two forks join at the bottom of a deep gorge directly below
Moro Rock Moro Rock is a granite dome Rock formations in the United States, rock formation in Sequoia National Park, California, United States. It is located in the center of the park, at the head of Moro Creek, between Giant Forest and Crescent Meadow. ...
to form the main stem of the Kaweah River. The Kaweah River flows in a southwest direction, paralleled by Highway 198 in its narrow canyon. A short distance outside Sequoia National Park it picks up the East Fork, which originates above elevation in the
Mineral King Mineral King is a subalpine glacial valley located in the southern part of Sequoia National Park, in the U.S. state of California. The valley lies at the headwaters of the East Fork of the Kaweah River, which rises at the eastern part of the vall ...
valley, from the left. It continues past the town of Three Rivers, where it receives the North Fork, which begins in the
Grant Grove General Grant Grove, a section of the greater Kings Canyon National Park, was established by the U.S. Congress in 1890 and is located in Fresno County, California. The primary attraction of General Grant Grove is the Sequoiadendron giganteum, gia ...
area of
Kings Canyon National Park Kings Canyon National Park is an American national park in the southern Sierra Nevada, in Fresno and Tulare Counties, California. Originally established in 1890 as General Grant National Park, the park was greatly expanded and renamed to Kings ...
. The South Fork enters from the left before the river empties into
Lake Kaweah Lake Kaweah is a reservoir near Lemon Cove in Tulare County, California. The lake is formed by Terminus Dam on the Kaweah River. The river originates in the Sierra Nevada and drains about into Lake Kaweah before flowing towards the San Joaquin ...
, the reservoir formed by
Terminus Dam Terminus Dam is a dam on the Kaweah River in Tulare County, California in the United States, located near Three Rivers about from the western boundary of Sequoia National Park and east of Visalia. The dam forms Lake Kaweah for flood control and ...
in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Terminus Dam, a high earthfill dam, has the primary purpose of flood control but also supplies water for irrigation and hydroelectricity. Below the dam the Kaweah River passes Lemon Cove, receives Dry Creek (also known as Lime Kiln Creek) from the right and flows into the San Joaquin Valley where it divides into several major
distributaries A distributary, or a distributary channel, is a stream that branches off and flows away from a main stream channel. Distributaries are a common feature of river deltas. The phenomenon is known as river bifurcation. The opposite of a distributary ...
. At the McKay Point Dam, the
St. John's River The St. Johns River ( es, Río San Juan) is the longest river in the U.S. state of Florida and its most significant one for commercial and recreational use. At long, it flows north and winds through or borders twelve counties. The drop in eleva ...
splits off to the northwest, making a wide loop around Visalia before becoming Cross Creek north of Goshen, from where it flows south. The main channel of the Kaweah River continues to the southwest through farmland, with Outside Creek and Deep Creek splitting to the south before the Kaweah itself divides into Mill Creek and
Packwood Creek Packwood Creek is one of the four main creeks that flow through the city of Visalia and the surrounding communities. It is a distributary of the Kaweah River. History Packwood Creek was named after Elisa Packwood.Annie R. Mitchell, Land of the Tu ...
. Mill Creek continues westward through Visalia, and Packwood Creek skirts to the south of the city, terminating in a small flood control basin. Mill Creek ends at a confluence with Cross Creek, which flows southward to the old Tulare Lake bed near
Corcoran Corcoran is an Irish surname, the original Irish language form being meaning 'descendant of Corcrán'. The name itself is derived from meaning 'purple'. History The name Corcoran is an anglicisation of the names of two Gaelic clans. The f ...
, joining a channel carrying water from the
Tule River The Tule River, also called Rio de San Pedro or Rio San Pedro, is a river in Tulare County in the U.S. state of California. The river originates in the Sierra Nevada east of Porterville and consists of three forks, North, Middle and South. The N ...
. The Kaweah Delta region, as defined by the Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District, covers about in Tulare and
Kings Kings or King's may refer to: *Monarchs: The sovereign heads of states and/or nations, with the male being kings *One of several works known as the "Book of Kings": **The Books of Kings part of the Bible, divided into two parts **The ''Shahnameh'' ...
Counties; the main cities are Visalia and Tulare. The length of the Kaweah River is between the confluence of the Middle and Marble Forks and the bifurcation of Mill and Packwood Creeks. However, including its tributaries and distributaries, the river is much longer. Mill Creek (the largest distributary stream) flows westward for to Cross Creek, for a total distance of . Including the upstream Middle Fork, which is about long, and the length of Cross Creek below Mill Creek, which is , some water in the Kaweah system flows from the head of the Middle Fork to the Tulare Lake bed. Most of the Kaweah River's runoff comes from the mountain watershed above Visalia, which covers a total of . Including all the lands drained and crossed by the river's many distributaries down to the Tulare Lake bed, the Kaweah River hydrologic region covers . The annual runoff of the Kaweah River between 1975 and 1995 was , or about . The river's highest flows are during the peak snowmelt months of May and June; winter flows are usually more of a trickle, although the river often experiences flooding during rainstorms. Most of the water is diverted above Visalia for irrigation and groundwater recharge. With the exception of
agricultural wastewater Agricultural wastewater treatment is a farm management agenda for controlling pollution from confined animal operations and from surface runoff that may be contaminated by chemicals in fertilizer, pesticides, animal slurry, crop residues or ir ...
, water rarely flows any further downstream except in wet years. Extremely large storms can temporarily refill Tulare Lake, as occurred most recently in 1997.


Natural features and environment

Due to its steep fall from the Sierra Nevada to the San Joaquin Valley, the Kaweah River passes through a wide range of climate and vegetation zones in a relatively short distance. Historically, the lower Kaweah flowed into a vast area of seasonally flooded
wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...
s surrounding Tulare Lake, almost all of which have been diked and drained for agriculture. The Kaweah historically formed a large overflow area east of Visalia known as the "Visalia Swamp" and in areas west of Visalia stream channels were poorly defined, often simply disappearing into the marsh lands during periods of high water. The foothill zone is characterized mostly by grassland and rangeland;
California oak woodland California oak woodland is a plant community found throughout the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion of California in the United States and northwestern Baja California in Mexico. Oak woodland is widespread at lower elevations in coasta ...
occurs along the Kaweah River and its perennial tributaries, although its range has been much reduced since Native American times. Further upstream and higher in elevation, the watershed is mostly mixed coniferous forest (pines and firs). The largest concentrations of giant sequoias, which grow only on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, are found in this section of the Kaweah watershed at mean elevations of , although specimens have been found as low as . The Kaweah watershed includes
Giant Forest The Giant Forest, famed for its giant sequoia trees, is within the United States' Sequoia National Park. This montane forest, situated at over above mean sea level in the western Sierra Nevada of California, covers an area of . The Giant Forest ...
, the most visited and accessible of all the sequoia groves, located on the divide between the Middle and Marble Forks; it includes the
General Sherman Tree General Sherman is a giant sequoia (''Sequoiadendron giganteum'') tree located in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park in Tulare County, California, Tulare County, in the U.S. state of California. By volume, it is the List of largest giant se ...
, the largest tree in the world by volume. Redwood Mountain Grove, the largest sequoia grove in the world at , and 21 other groves are also located in the Kaweah watershed. A relatively small portion of the Kaweah basin is high, craggy alpine country typical of the southern Sierra; such treeless, lake-studded areas of exposed granite are mostly found along the crest of the Great Western Divide. Today,
mule deer The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer. Unlike the related whit ...
are the largest wild animal inhabiting the valley and foothill area; historically, large herds of
tule elk The tule elk (''Cervus canadensis nannodes'') is a subspecies of elk found only in California, ranging from the grasslands and marshlands of the Central Valley to the grassy hills on the coast. The subspecies name derives from the tule (), a s ...
frequented the area, but their habitat in the Kaweah Delta has been almost eliminated by agriculture. There are many species of foxes, wildcats, squirrels, and rabbits including the endemic
San Joaquin kit fox The endangered San Joaquin kit fox (''Vulpes macrotis mutica'') was formerly very common in the San Joaquin Valley and through much of Central California. Its 1990 population was estimated to be 7,000. This subspecies is still endangered, after n ...
,
San Joaquin antelope squirrel The San Joaquin antelope squirrel or Nelson's antelope squirrel (''Ammospermophilus nelsoni''), is a species of antelope squirrel, in the San Joaquin Valley of the U.S. state of California. Distribution and habitat The San Joaquin antelope squi ...
, and others.
California grizzly bear The California grizzly bear (''Ursus arctos californicus'') is an extinct population or subspecies of the brown bear, generally known (together with other North American brown bear populations) as the grizzly bear. "Grizzly" could have meant "gri ...
and
beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers ar ...
were once common to the area but were hunted or trapped out entirely by the early 1900s. The mountain areas continue to provide habitat for
black bear Black bear or Blackbear may refer to: Animals * American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), a North American bear species * Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), an Asian bear species Music * Black Bear (band), a Canadian First Nations group ...
s, mule deer, and
bighorn sheep The bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') is a species of sheep native to North America. It is named for its large horns. A pair of horns might weigh up to ; the sheep typically weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates three distinct subspec ...
, and the Kaweah River above Three Rivers has native
rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead (sometimes called "steelhead trout") is an anadromous (sea-run) form of the coasta ...
and introduced brown trout and bass. In alpine areas above the tree line, small mammals such as
marmot Marmots are large ground squirrels in the genus ''Marmota'', with 15 species living in Asia, Europe, and North America. These herbivores are active during the summer, when they can often be found in groups, but are not seen during the winter, w ...
s and
pika A pika ( or ; archaically spelled pica) is a small, mountain-dwelling mammal found in Asia and North America. With short limbs, very round body, an even coat of fur, and no external tail, they resemble their close relative, the rabbit, but wi ...
are common.


History

The Kaweah River watershed was originally inhabited by the indigenous
Yokuts people The Yokuts (previously known as MariposasPowell, 1891:90–91.) are an ethnic group of Native Americans native to central California. Before European contact, the Yokuts consisted of up to 60 tribes speaking several related languages. ''Yokuts ...
of the Central Valley. By at least 3,000 years ago, a group known as the
Wukchumni The Wukchumni () are a Yokuts tribe of California with about 200 members, residing on the Tule River Reservation. 3000 years ago, they broke off from the main Yokuts group and settled in the region of the east fork of the Kaweah River. History Appr ...
had permanent settlements along the river. The greatest concentration of Native American settlements was along the foothill reach of the Kaweah River, in what is today Three Rivers and Lake Kaweah. The Wukchumni spent summers hunting game and gathering herbs along the East Fork, and they traded with the
Paiute people Paiute (; also Piute) refers to three non-contiguous groups of indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. Although their languages are related within the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, these three groups do not form a single set. The term "Paiu ...
s of the
Great Basin The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic basin, endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California ...
. Around 700 to 500 years ago, the
Western Mono The Mono ( ) are a Native American people who traditionally live in the central Sierra Nevada, the Eastern Sierra (generally south of Bridgeport), the Mono Basin, and adjacent areas of the Great Basin. The Eastern mono is often grouped under th ...
came to settle in the region as well. Oak trees grew in abundance along low-elevation, permanent streams and provided the staple food of acorns, which were used to make cakes and bread. Native Americans ground acorns into a fine mush using holes in the local
granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...
bedrock as mortars. Permanent winter settlements in the foothills consisted of
pit house A pit-house (or ''pit house'', ''pithouse'') is a house built in the ground and used for shelter. Besides providing shelter from the most extreme of weather conditions, these structures may also be used to store food (just like a pantry, a larder ...
s thatched with tules (vast amounts of which once grew in the marshes of the Kaweah delta) up to in diameter. Hospital Rock, a flat next to the Middle Fork, was used as a camp possibly as early as the 1300s AD.
Spanish explorers Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...
came to the Kaweah River area in the early 1800s, although it is not clear who first explored the Kaweah Delta (possibly the
Gabriel Moraga Gabriel Moraga (1765 – June 14, 1823) was a Sonoran-born Californio explorer and army officer. He was the son of the expeditionary José Joaquín Moraga who helped lead the de Anza Expedition to California in 1774, Like his father, Moraga is on ...
party in 1806). Early Spanish names for the river included Rio de San Gabriel and Rio San Francisco. Several such expeditions were sent into the region, in order to conscript Native Americans into the mission system. Father Pedro Muñoz wrote that the Kaweah would be a good place for a mission, but none were ever established there, because it was too far from the coast and could not be easily defended. In the following decades, Native American resistance to Spanish colonial government prompted many military raids, killing many of the natives who had not already succumbed to European diseases. After California became a U.S. state, the
California Gold Rush The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...
drew some prospectors to the Kaweah in the 1850s, but not much gold mining occurred in the area. During this time, the Kaweah was often known as the "River Francis", a corruption of the old Spanish name.
Hale Tharp Hale Dixon Tharp was a miner during the California Gold Rush, and the first non-Native Americans in the United States, Native American settler to enter Giant Forest, in what is now Sequoia National Park. Gold Country Tharp was born in Michigan in ...
, a stockman and early settler in Three Rivers, discovered the
Giant Forest The Giant Forest, famed for its giant sequoia trees, is within the United States' Sequoia National Park. This montane forest, situated at over above mean sea level in the western Sierra Nevada of California, covers an area of . The Giant Forest ...
in 1858 with the help of Native American guides. In 1861 Tharp returned to this area between the Middle and Marble forks of the Kaweah River, using a hollowed-out fallen sequoia log (
Tharp's Log Tharp's Log is a hollowed giant sequoia (''Sequoiadendron giganteum'') log at Log Meadow in the Giant Forest grove of Sequoia National Park that was used as a shelter by early pioneers. The log is named after Hale D. Tharp, who was described as ...
) as a cabin. In 1873, a silver boom in Mineral King attracted thousands of people to the high mountain valley along the East Fork. The peak of mining had passed by 1882, when the Empire Mine (owned by state senator Thomas Fowler, who invested most of his fortune in the mine) went under. Small operations continued, sporadically, into the late 1920s. After the end of silver mining, Mineral King became a popular summer resort. The one resource extraction industry that succeeded in the Kaweah basin was timber; many logging camps sprang up in the heavily forested western slopes of the Sierra, including in the watershed's sequoia groves. The Kaweah Colony was a utopian socialist community founded in 1886, along the Kaweah River in what is now Sequoia National Park. Although giant sequoia wood is generally too soft to be useful in construction, many sequoias were felled between the 1860s and the 1880s when the U.S. government began establishing timber reserves in the area, under pressure from
conservationists The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental, and social movement that seeks to manage and protect natural resources, including animal, fungus, and plant species as well as their habitat for the f ...
, including
John Muir John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, a ...
, who visited the Kaweah's Marble Fork and named Giant Forest in 1875. Logging mostly ended after Sequoia National Park was founded in 1890; the bill establishing the park was pushed through in part due to the actions of the
Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...
, which saw the Kaweah colony as a competitor to logging operations that it owned elsewhere. Some settlers in the Kaweah Colony attempted to continue their operations but were later convicted of illegal logging, after which the colony dissolved in 1892. The Kaweah Delta (historically also known as the "Four Creeks area", after the four major branches of the Kaweah River) was one of the earliest places in the
San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven c ...
to be populated and farmed by U.S. settlers, although before the construction of Terminus Dam the entire area was frequently flooded; the
Great Flood of 1862 The Great Flood of 1862 was the largest flood in the recorded history of Oregon, Nevada, and California, occurring from December 1861 to January 1862. It was preceded by weeks of continuous rains and snows in the very high elevations that began in ...
temporarily changed the course of the river, creating the distributary today known as St. John's River. Agriculture began in the Kaweah Delta around 1864 when a group of local farmers dug the Consolidated Peoples' Ditch. The people of Visalia hired Native Americans to extend a canal from Mill Creek to power the expanding settlement's flour mill. In addition, multiple channels had to be dug to redirect the flow of St. John's River back into the Kaweah, which had been blocked by sediment during the 1862 flood. It was not until after the
Wright Act of 1887 The Wright Act of 1887 is a state law of California passed by the legislature on March 7, 1887, that allowed farming regions to form and bond irrigation districts which allowed small farm owners to band together, pool resources, and get water to whe ...
, however, that farming expanded significantly. The Wright Act allowed the formation of the Tulare Irrigation District, which began to establish a network of canals across the Kaweah Delta. Surface water provided the main supply as late as 1900, after which the area's abundant
groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available freshwater in the world is groundwater. A unit of rock or an unconsolidate ...
reserves were pumped at increasing rates. Tulare Lake disappeared by the early 1900s, and by the 1930s, agricultural development had surpassed the capacity of local water resources. In the 1960s
Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
proposed to construct a ski resort in Mineral King, which would have brought one of the most intense developments in the history of the upper Kaweah watershed. The resort would have included 22 ski lifts, a 1,030-room hotel, ten restaurants, and a railroad along the canyon of the East Fork Kaweah River to transport visitors from a parking area further down the mountain. Environmentalists fought against the proposal for many years, and in 1978 the
National Parks and Recreation Act National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...
designated the area as part of Sequoia National Park.


River modifications

In order to make the Kaweah Delta suitable for agriculture and eventually urban development, the tangle of diverging seasonal channels and marshes had to be drained and diked extensively. As early as the 1870s local irrigation companies were dredging some creeks and blocking off side channels in order to direct floodwater away from farms. A major early 20th century project was the channelization of Mill Creek, which runs through the middle of Visalia and posed a major flooding threat before it was straightened, deepened and widened in 1910 at a cost of $70,000. Dams were built in the 1920s and 1930s at McKays Point to divide water flow between the Kaweah and St. Johns Rivers, to satisfy downstream water rights. Today, the Kaweah Delta has very little resemblance to historic times; most of the streams have either disappeared or been channelized, and Tulare Lake itself is now a dry, diked basin that only very occasionally floods. The Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District manages the distribution of water to irrigation districts and city water districts over a service area. The primary crops grown in the district are cotton, various fruits, nuts, alfalfa, and other field crops. In addition to surface water, the district utilizes
Central Valley Project The Central Valley Project (CVP) is a federal power and water management project in the U.S. state of California under the supervision of the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR). It was devised in 1933 in order to provide irrigation and m ...
water from the
Friant-Kern Canal The Friant-Kern Canal is a aqueduct (water supply), aqueduct managed by the United States Bureau of Reclamation in Central California to convey water to augment irrigation capacity in Fresno County, California, Fresno, Tulare County, California, ...
, which delivers water from the
San Joaquin River The San Joaquin River (; es, Río San Joaquín) is the longest river of Central California. The long river starts in the high Sierra Nevada, and flows through the rich agricultural region of the northern San Joaquin Valley before reaching Suis ...
to the Tulare Basin. Water can be turned out into either the Kaweah or St. Johns rivers, augmenting the water supply available to Kaweah Delta users. Groundwater is the other important source of water supply for the basin. The local aquifer has suffered from overdraft for many decades with an estimated annual deficit of between pumping and replenishment. In order to increase the rate of
groundwater recharge Groundwater recharge or deep drainage or deep percolation is a hydrologic process, where water moves downward from surface water to groundwater. Recharge is the primary method through which water enters an aquifer. This process usually occurs in ...
, more than 40 recharge basins or
spreading ground A spreading ground is a water conservation facility that retains surface water long enough for it to percolate into the soil. Spreading grounds must be located where underlying soils are permeable and connected to a target aquifer. Locating them ...
s totaling have been constructed throughout the district, which allow floodwaters to percolate into the ground.
Hydroelectric power Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...
development on the Kaweah River began when the Mount Whitney Power Company built a diversion, flume and the Kaweah No. 1 powerhouse on the East Fork in 1899. In 1905 it completed Kaweah No. 2 powerhouse on the Middle Fork. The company then applied for permission to construct a third power plant on the Middle Fork inside Sequoia National Park, which was approved partly because at the time, this was an infrequently visited area of the park. The Kaweah No. 3 plant was completed by 1913, and was followed by more plans to construct a reservoir at Wolverton and at least two additional power plants. The Kaweah plants brought electricity to Visalia for the first time, and the power was also used by farmers to pump
groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available freshwater in the world is groundwater. A unit of rock or an unconsolidate ...
. However, construction of the Wolverton dam was thwarted by bad foundation rock and the other power plants were also never built. Taken over by
Southern California Edison Southern California Edison (or SCE Corp), the largest subsidiary of Edison International, is the primary electricity supply company for much of Southern California. It provides 15 million people with electricity across a service territory of app ...
in 1917, the system today consists of six dams, three powerhouses, three forebays and many miles of concrete and wooden flumes. The Kaweah No. 3 plant is an eligible property for the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
.
Terminus Dam Terminus Dam is a dam on the Kaweah River in Tulare County, California in the United States, located near Three Rivers about from the western boundary of Sequoia National Park and east of Visalia. The dam forms Lake Kaweah for flood control and ...
was constructed by the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...
in 1962 to help relieve the Kaweah Delta's chronic flooding. Prior to damming, the river could reach very high flows during winter storms, with a maximum of in December 1955. However, the capacity of the main channel of the Kaweah River is only , and its distributaries have an even lower capacity. Four years after the dam's completion, it prevented $19.6 million of damage during a single storm in December 1966. However, the capacity of the reservoir, Lake Kaweah, was too small to control the most severe floods, and was so for many years until the completion of a spillway enhancement project in 2004. Six huge fuse gates, the largest of their type in the world, were added to the dam; the reservoir can now safely hold of water, an increase of 30 percent from the original capacity.


Recreation

All the forks of the Kaweah River are located in Sequoia National Park, which receives more than 1.2 million recreational visitors each year. The river is a major park attraction for boating and fishing, but can be "extremely hazardous" during high water in the spring and summer. Several commercial outfitters serve the traditional Class IV section of the Kaweah River between the Pumpkin Hollow bridge (near the park entrance) and Lake Kaweah. Advanced kayakers frequent the Class V Middle Fork at Hospital Rock, further upstream in Sequoia National Park; the North Fork is a wilderness run, requiring boaters to carry all their equipment to the put-in. The river is free-flowing above Lake Kaweah so the rafting season depends entirely on the natural snowmelt, typically between April and July. Access to the Kaweah River for fishing, swimming and water play can be difficult in the Three Rivers area, because most of the river banks are on private property. In Sequoia National Park the river flows at the bottom of a deep canyon and can also be difficult to reach. The river just above Lake Kaweah is publicly accessible at the Slick Rock Recreation Area; however, this location is inundated most summers when the level of Lake Kaweah is high. Slick Rock, known to locals as "Boulder Beach", has rock climbing areas and historic Native American bedrock mortars. Lake Kaweah itself offers shoreline fishing and flatwater boating. The upper South Fork in Sequoia National Park has good fishing for wild rainbow trout, although a long hike is required to reach it. A California fishing license is required for visitors older than age 16 in the park. The upper Kaweah is also home to many hiking trails. Day hikes include the walk along Marble Fork to Tokopah Falls, and the Mineral King area along the East Fork also has a number of short trails. Backpacking is popular on the
High Sierra Trail The High Sierra Trail (HST) is a hiking trail in Sequoia National Park, California. The trail crosses the Sierra Nevada from west to east. According to the Yosemite Decimal System, the HST is a Class 1/Class 2 trail, which means simple scrambl ...
, which runs from Giant Forest through the Middle Fork canyon, and summits the Great Western Divide via
Kaweah Gap The Kaweah Gap () is the lowest east–west pass through the Great Western Divide, in Sequoia National Park, California, United States. The High Sierra Trail is routed through this pass. The Kaweah Gap is flanked by Mount Stewart Mount S ...
en route toward the
John Muir Trail The John Muir Trail (JMT) (Northern Paiute language, Paiute: Nüümü Poyo, ''N-ue-mue Poh-yo'') is a long-distance trail in the Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada mountain range of California, passing through Yosemite National Park, Yosemite, ...
to
Mount Whitney Mount Whitney (Paiute: Tumanguya; ''Too-man-i-goo-yah'') is the highest mountain in the contiguous United States and the Sierra Nevada, with an elevation of . It is in East–Central California, on the boundary between California's Inyo and Tu ...
. The
Bearpaw Meadow High Sierra Camp Bearpaw Meadow High Sierra Camp is a full-service tent campground in Sequoia National Park. It was established in 1934. The camp was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016. Weather permitting, it is open mid June to mid Septem ...
is located along the High Sierra Trail near the headwaters of the Middle Fork.


See also

*
List of rivers of California This is a list of rivers in the U.S. state of California, grouped by region. Major lakes and reservoirs, if applicable, are indicated in italics. North Coast (north of Humboldt Bay) Rivers and streams between the Oregon border and Humboldt Bay th ...
*
Wukchumni The Wukchumni () are a Yokuts tribe of California with about 200 members, residing on the Tule River Reservation. 3000 years ago, they broke off from the main Yokuts group and settled in the region of the east fork of the Kaweah River. History Appr ...


Notes


References


External links


Kaweah River Geography and History

Kaweah Commonwealth News Publication

Kaweah River Basin streamflow and reservoir storage data
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers {{Authority control Rivers of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Rivers of Tulare County, California Tulare Basin watershed Geography of the San Joaquin Valley Sequoia National Forest Sequoia National Park Rivers of Northern California Rivers of the Sierra Nevada in California