The Watab River, also known as Watab Creek, is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
accessed November 29, 2012 tributary of the Mississippi River in

Stearns County Stearns County is a county in the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 158,292. Its county seat and largest city is St. Cloud. The county was founded in 1855. It was originally named for Isaac Ingalls Stevens, the ...

in central Minnesota in the United States. It rises north of

St. Joseph Joseph (; el, Ἰωσήφ, translit=Ioséph) was a 1st-century Jewish man of Nazareth who, according to the canonical Gospels, was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was the legal father of Jesus. The Gospels also name some brothers ...

at the confluence of its North and South Forks, and flows northeast through Watab Lake, then east into the Mississippi River at

Sartell Sartell is a city in Benton and Stearns Counties in the U.S. state of Minnesota that straddles the Mississippi River. It is part of the St. Cloud Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 19,351 at the 2020 census, making it St. Clo ...

. The North Fork Watab River, long, rises in Island Lake, a small creek feeds Pflueger Lake, flows northeasterly to Stumpf Lake, then southeasterly near Collegeville, merging with the South Fork near

. The South Fork Watab River, long, flows southeast from

Big Watab Lake Big or BIG may refer to: * Big, of great size or degree Film and television * ''Big'' (film), a 1988 fantasy-comedy film starring Tom Hanks * '' Big!'', a Discovery Channel television show * ''Richard Hammond's Big'', a television show present ...

to Little Watab Lake, and through a pond before flowing northeast and into North Fork Watab River.

History

The word ''watab'' comes from the Anishinaabe/ Ojibwe language ''wadab-ziibi'' ("river with spruce-roots") due to the exposed

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...

roots once found along its banks, which comes from the Algonquian '' watap'', the

cordage Cordage may refer to: * Rigging, cords and ropes attached to masts and sails on a ship or boat * Rope, yarns, plies or strands twisted or braided together into a larger form See also * String (disambiguation) * Cord (disambiguation) Cord or ...

used for sewing together the birch-bark panels on a canoe. In 1825 the Watab formed the first part of the border on the west side of the Mississippi between the Anishinaabe/Ojibwe to the north and the Dakota/Sioux to the south, and 20 years later the southern boundary for the Winnebago/

Ho-Chunk The Ho-Chunk, also known as Hoocągra or Winnebago (referred to as ''Hotúŋe'' in the neighboring indigenous Iowa-Otoe language), are a Siouan-speaking Native American people whose historic territory includes parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iow ...

Long Prairie Reservation of less than ten years' duration.

References

Rivers of Minnesota Tributaries of the Mississippi River Rivers of Stearns County, Minnesota {{Minnesota-river-stub