The Pawnee River or Pawnee Fork is a river in western

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, about long.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
accessed March 29, 2011 It is a tributary of the

Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United Stat ...

, which in turn is a branch of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

. It rises in northwestern Gray County at an elevation of , as the outflow of several agricultural drainage channels. For the river runs due north, before turning northeast near Ravanna. The river arcs to the south and receives

Buckner Creek Buckner may refer to: People * Buckner H. Payne (1799-1889), American clergyman, publisher, and racist pamphleteer *Buckner Thruston (1763–1845), U.S. Senator and judge from Kentucky * Buckner (surname) Music * Buckner & Garcia was an America ...

, its main tributary at the town of Burdett, then flows east past Rozel and through

Fort Larned National Historic Site Fort Larned National Historic Site preserves Fort Larned which operated from 1859 to 1878. It is approximately west of Larned, Kansas, United States. History The Camp on Pawnee Fork was established on October 22, 1859 to protect traffic al ...

. It joins the Arkansas River on the left bank, south of the city of Larned. This river drains an arid farming region of about of the

Great Plains The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...

. Most of its flow is consumed by irrigation before it reaches the mouth, and the river dries up for periods of months at a time in most years. The land surrounding the river was originally inhabited by the Kansa,

Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enroll ...

Osage The Osage Nation, a Native American tribe in the United States, is the source of most other terms containing the word "osage". Osage can also refer to: * Osage language, a Dhaegin language traditionally spoken by the Osage Nation * Osage (Unicode b ...

Pawnee Pawnee initially refers to a Native American people and its language: * Pawnee people * Pawnee language Pawnee is also the name of several places in the United States: * Pawnee, Illinois * Pawnee, Kansas * Pawnee, Missouri * Pawnee City, Nebraska * ...

and other tribes, the latter for which the river is named. The river was a route for the

Santa Fe Trail The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, th ...

in the 19th century, and was also the scene of Native American-U.S. wars in 1854, after which

Fort Larned Fort Larned National Historic Site preserves Fort Larned which operated from 1859 to 1878. It is approximately west of Larned, Kansas, United States. History The Camp on Pawnee Fork was established on October 22, 1859 to protect traffic al ...

was established on the river to maintain a permanent military presence in the region.

References

Rivers of Kansas Tributaries of the Arkansas River Bodies of water of Gray County, Kansas Bodies of water of Pawnee County, Kansas {{Kansas-river-stub

See also

References