The St. John's River is a distributary of the

Kaweah River The Kaweah River is a river draining the southern Sierra Nevada in Tulare County, California in the United States. Fed primarily by high elevation snowmelt along the Great Western Divide, the Kaweah begins as four forks in Sequoia National Park ...

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 ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

in the United States. The river begins at a diversion dam at McKay's Point, about a mile west of Lemon Cove. The distributary flows west along the north side of the city of

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 ...

, where it joins Elbow Creek, continuing west to Cross Creek. Water from this distributary historically 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 ...

, as did water continuing down the main channel of the Kaweah. Tulare lake was the terminal sink of an

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 southern San Joaquin Valley which was also watered by the

Kern KERN (1180 AM broadcasting, AM) is a commercial radio, commercial radio station city of license, licensed to Wasco, California, Wasco-Greenacres, California, and serving the Bakersfield metropolitan area. The station is owned by American General ...

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 ...

, and by some distributaries of the Kings River. Presently water from these rivers is typically used up for irrigation. Water from the St. John's irrigates many thousands of acres of farmland 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. ...

. At a point about north of Farmersville, the St. John's enters Elbow Creek. It flows then westerly to Cross Creek at a point north of Goshen and back into Elbow Creek at the confluence of Elbow and Cross creeks. This water in time of flood finds its way into the

Basin through Elbow Creek.

History

The St. John's River was named after Loomis St. John and was a product of the 1862 flood. In 1889, the Tulare Irrigation District was organized, and that body constructed a series of canals which diverted water from the river. From one-half to one-third of the water was lost as it coursed through the unlined canals. In 1906, the St. John's River levee broke, and water poured into

from the north, which helped cause the floods of 1906.Kathleen Edwards Small, Early History of Tulare County California, Floods and Droughts: Floods in 1906, (Exeter, California: 2001): 150.

References

* {{Authority control Rivers of Tulare County, California Geography of Visalia, California Rivers of Northern California

History

See also

References