ELKO, Nev. (AP) - Most Nevadans love water, probably because it exists in such limited supply. But what many of us refer to as the “Mighty Humboldt” was hotly scorned by early travelers.
Our river may be a tiny trickle come August, but it is the longest waterway running within a single state in the United States. It also takes a serpentine course, making the path to follow such a lifeline even longer.
The river begins north of Wells and runs west 330 miles to the town of Lovelock. That makes it the longest river in America that begins and ends within the area of one state, according to the Nevada Department of Wildlife.
The length doesn’t count the Humboldt’s meandering ways. Snaking side-to-side, the river runs more than twice its as-the-crow-flies distance, researchers at the Nevada Division of Water Resources say.
“Before the great westward migration, the first inhabitants of the Great Basin made use of the river later known as the Humboldt for millennia,” Nevada Outdoor School education program technician Tim Burns said during a talk May 2 at the California Trail Center. “Unfortunately, only stories survive to tell us about the original condition of the valley. One of those is a hint from John C. Fremont’s report of his 1845 exploration. He described the valley as being beautifully covered with blue grass, herb grass, clover and other nutritious grasses and that scattered cottonwood trees grew along the stream banks.”
Burns went on to explain that the valley did not stay green for long once the first American explorers started visiting the area.
“The first white men to explore the valley were the members of Peter Skene Ogden’s 1828 expedition,” Burns said. “The river was originally named Paul’s River and Mary’s River.”
Ogden was sent to explore the river by Hudson’s Bay Company, a fur business. His team was sent to create a “fur desert,” or to kill as many beavers as possible to cut the supply for their rivals.
Beaver damns declined, as did the natural course and management of the river.
Other explorers went in search of the Bonaventura River that was thought to exist in the area. It was rumored to be a huge river that flowed from the Rocky Mountains to the ocean.
“It kind of started as a fish story,” Burns said. “Eventually there was this story going around that there was this enormous river that was as large as the Mississippi.”
Of course, the idea was a complete myth, but explorers and people migrating west expected more than what they discovered.
“The 1845 U.S. mapping expedition under John C. Fremont disproved these rumors once and for all. He named it after a German naturalist named Alexander Von Humboldt, although the man never saw the Humboldt,” Burns said.
Later people making their way west had to follow this waterway to survive, and many of them did not think much of it.
In 1849, Reuben Cole Shaw wrote: “The Humboldt is not good for man nor beast and there is not timber enough in three hundred miles of its desolate valley to make a snuff box, or sufficient vegetation along its banks to shade a rabbit, while its waters contain the alkali to make soap for a nation.”
In 1852 a man named Gilbert L. Cole wrote: “For about 10 days the only water we had was obtained in the pools by which we’d camp. These pools were stagnant and their edges invariably lined with dead cattle that had died trying to get a drink. Selecting a carcass that was solid enough to hold us up we would walk into the pool taking a blanket with us which we would wash around and get as full of water as it would hold, then carry it ashore where two men, one holding each end, would twist the filthy water out into a pan, which would, in turn, be emptied into our canteens.”
In 1850, Margaret Frank said about the Humboldt Sink: “This is the end of the most miserable river on the face of the Earth.”
A man named Addison Crane in 1852 was inspired enough to write a poem about the Humboldt River:
Farewell to thee, thou stinking, turbid stream,
Amid who’s waters frogs and serpents glean.
Thou putrid mass of filth, farewell forever,
For here again I’ll tempt my fortunes never.
Burns explained that the river’s water is so bitter because it is filled with alkali left over from ancient Lake Bonneville. The Great Salt Lake is the remnant of this waterway.
“At one point, the Humboldt River Valley was only inhabited by a few hundred people who never stayed for extended periods of time in any one place,” Burns said. “Then tens of thousands of wagons passed through the valley in the 1840s. Tens of thousands of oxen, mules and horses ate the grass growing along the riverbanks. Tens of thousands of wagon parties chopped down trees to repair their wagons or make their campfires. Tens of thousands of thirsty people and animals drained the river when the water level was at its lowest. Without the plants to filter out the river, the water became even more soapy and bitter. The immigrants were complaining about a problem they created.”
The railroad was also dependent on this minimal trickle and so followed that route, as did roadways and permanent settlements.
“Without the Humboldt and its tributaries, the Great Basin would be all but uninhabitable,” Burns said. “So, next time you feel like making a disparaging comment about the “Mighty Humboldt,” remember, without it, you wouldn’t be here.”
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Information from: Elko Daily Free Press, http://www.elkodaily.com
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