Jason E. Andersen

Bonus Fun Fact: The Missouri River is the longest river in North America. Its waters start at Brower’s Spring in western Montana and stretch 2,341 miles before emptying into the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri. 

Bonus Bonus Fun Fact: The Missouri River is nicknamed ‘The Big Muddy’ and is said to be ‘too thick to drink and too thin to plow.’ You may have heard that saying applied to other rivers, but the phrase was originally written to describe the Missouri and appeared in a New York newspaper in 1890.

Bonus Bonus Bonus Fun Fact: ​I heard from a semi-reliable source that the segment of Missouri River that flows by Council Bluffs/Omaha is the fastest-flowing segment of navigable water in the United States. I wasn’t able to double-check this tidbit, but I thought it was interesting enough to share. They said they got the info from one of the engineers with the Army Corps thereof, so it seems plausible. The extensive channelization in the area forces the high volume of water through a smaller channel, which leads to faster water flow speeds. If you stand on the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge and look down, you can see the water is sailing (ha!) right along.