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102-474: As of Fiscal Year 2002/2003, COR had a total of 1,703 staff and an annual institutional budget of US$ 115 million. As of April 30, 2020, COR was incarcerating people at 119.4% of its design capacity, with 3,719 occupants. Built on what was once Tulare Lake , the facility opened in 1988. The prison hospital was dedicated in October 1993. In March 1993, at Corcoran, prisoner Wayne Jerome Robertson raped Eddie Dillard,

204-560: A May 1993 shooting, and $ 825,000 for the killing of Preston Tate in April 1994. Subsequently, COR has been featured in at least two episodes of MSNBC 's Lockup series: "Inside Corcoran" (first aired as early as 2003) and "Return to Corcoran" (first aired in 2005). In July 2013, many inmates at COR participated in a state-wide hunger strike protesting the use of solitary confinement . Billy Michael Sell, an inmate in COR who had been participating in

306-624: A guard fatally shoots a combatant", was released in February 1998. That month, eight California correctional officers and supervisors were indicted "on federal criminal civil rights charges in connection with inmate fights that occurred at Corcoran State Prison in 1994". After a trial, the eight men were "acquitted of all charges" in June 2000. As of 1999 California had paid out several large prison brutality settlements for incidents at Corcoran, including $ 2.2 million to inmate Vincent Tulumis, paralyzed for life in

408-532: A large mound of sand spanning the width of the river 55 feet below the surface, allowing fresh water and large cargo ships to pass over. Fresh river water flowing from the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico does not mix into the salt water immediately. The images from NASA 's MODIS show a large plume of fresh water, which appears as a dark ribbon against the lighter-blue surrounding waters. These images demonstrate that

510-703: A length of 3,710 miles (5,971 km), making it the fourth longest river in the world after the Nile , Amazon , and Yangtze . When measured by the largest stream source (by water volume), the Ohio River , by extension the Allegheny River , would be the source, and the Mississippi would begin in Pennsylvania . At its source at Lake Itasca , the Mississippi River is about 3 feet (0.91 m) deep. The average depth of

612-478: A natural process known as avulsion or delta switching, the lower Mississippi River has shifted its final course to the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico every thousand years or so. This occurs because the deposits of silt and sediment begin to clog its channel, raising the river's level and causing it to eventually find a steeper, more direct route to the Gulf of Mexico. The abandoned distributaries diminish in volume and form what are known as bayous . This process has, over

714-422: A prisoner about half his size, after the latter was reassigned to his cell. Robertson, who had the nickname "Booty Bandit", testified in 1999 that prison guards set up the attack. Dillard testified in the same trial. After Robertson was assigned to general population at Pelican Bay State Prison , California state senator Tom Hayden stated "It is almost certain that he would be targeted for death." In August 1996,

816-527: A shallow basin of fertile soil , within the Central Valley of California , the most productive agricultural region of the United States. Farms in the basin produce much of the country's cotton, tomatoes, pistachios, almonds, walnuts, alfalfa, wheat, barley and cow milk. Farmers have irrigated the area for a century, so soil salination is becoming a concern. The destruction of the terrestrial wetlands and

918-459: A size of 20,000 acres (81 km ), which resulted in about $ 100 million worth of crop damage and losses. The groundwater in recent years has been overpumped by the large land owners that dominate the politics and economy of the Tulare Lake region. The overpumping has contributed to the sinking of the ground under Corcoran , as well as exacerbated the dangers of flooding and necessitated

1020-809: Is 208,200 cu ft/s (5,900 m /s). Thus, by volume, the main branch of the Mississippi River system at Cairo can be considered to be the Ohio River (and the Allegheny River further upstream), rather than the Middle Mississippi. In addition to the Ohio River , the major tributaries of the Lower Mississippi River are the White River , flowing in at the White River National Wildlife Refuge in east-central Arkansas;

1122-558: Is a meandering river in a broad, flat area, only rarely flowing alongside a bluff (as at Vicksburg, Mississippi ). The Mississippi River is known as the Middle Mississippi from the Upper Mississippi River's confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri , for 190 miles (310 km) to its confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois . The Middle Mississippi is relatively free-flowing. From St. Louis to

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1224-494: Is called the Lower Mississippi River from its confluence with the Ohio River to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of about 1,000 miles (1,600 km). At the confluence of the Ohio and the Middle Mississippi, the long-term mean discharge of the Ohio at Cairo, Illinois is 281,500 cubic feet per second (7,970 cubic meters per second), while the long-term mean discharge of the Mississippi at Thebes, Illinois (just upriver from Cairo)

1326-868: Is controlled and managed as a series of pools created by 26 locks and dams. The Upper Mississippi River is joined by the Minnesota River at Fort Snelling in the Twin Cities ; the St. Croix River near Prescott, Wisconsin ; the Cannon River near Red Wing, Minnesota ; the Zumbro River at Wabasha, Minnesota ; the Black , La Crosse , and Root rivers in La Crosse, Wisconsin ; the Wisconsin River at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin ;

1428-509: Is largely a multi-thread stream with many bars and islands. From its confluence with the St. Croix River downstream to Dubuque, Iowa , the river is entrenched, with high bedrock bluffs lying on either side. The height of these bluffs decreases to the south of Dubuque, though they are still significant through Savanna, Illinois . This topography contrasts strongly with the Lower Mississippi, which

1530-567: Is the primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States . From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota , it flows generally south for 2,340 miles (3,766 km) to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico . With its many tributaries , the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between

1632-528: Is the only true waterfall on the entire Mississippi River. The water elevation continues to drop steeply as it passes through the gorge carved by the waterfall. After the completion of the St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in 1963, the river's head of navigation moved upstream, to the Coon Rapids Dam . However, the Locks were closed in 2015 to control the spread of invasive Asian carp , making Minneapolis once again

1734-530: Is thus cognate with various Mesoamerican sites, such as Tula and Tultepec . A Tachi name of the lake is Pa'ashi which translates to "big water". Other variants include Chentache (or Chintache) and Chataqui. Before 600,000 years ago, Lake Corcoran covered the Central Valley of California. 600,000 years ago a new outlet formed in the present day San Francisco Bay , rapidly carving an outlet through Carquinez Strait , probably catastrophically, and drained

1836-399: Is twenty, fifteen and even less in width. It is all a labyrinth of lakes and tulares , and the river San Francisco, divided into several branches, winding in the middle of the plain, now enters and now flows out of the lakes, until very near to the place where it enters into the estuary of the river. Tulare ultimately derives from Classical Nahuatl tōlin , "rush" or "reeds". The name

1938-558: Is usually a dry lake with residual wetlands and marshes . The lake reappears during unusually high levels of rainfall or snow melt as it did in 1942, 1969, 1983, 1997, 1998, and 2023. The Spanish word tular (plural: tulares ) refers to a field of tule rush . Spanish captain Pedro Fages led the first excursions to the southern San Joaquin Valley in 1773 . This plain will exceed one hundred and twenty leagues in length and in parts

2040-582: The CBS News 60 Minutes discussed the 1994 death, "the alleged cover-up and the alarming number of shootings at the prison". The California Department of Corrections issued the results of its own investigation in November 1997, which found "isolated incidents of staff misconduct" but no " ' widespread staff conspiracy' to abuse prisoners". A film titled Maximum Security University , which used prison surveillance tapes showing four 1989–1993 fights "end[ing] when

2142-487: The Los Angeles Times claimed that COR was "the most troubled of the 32 state prisons". At the time, COR officers had shot and killed more inmates "than any prison in the country" in COR's eight years of existence. Seven inmates had been killed, and 50 others seriously wounded. Based on interviews and documents, Arax concluded that many shootings of prisoners were "not justified" and that in some cases "the wrong inmate

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2244-604: The American Civil War , the Mississippi's capture by Union forces marked a turning point towards victory , due to the river's strategic importance to the Confederate war effort. Because of the substantial growth of cities and the larger ships and barges that replaced steamboats, the first decades of the 20th century saw the construction of massive engineering works such as levees , locks and dams , often built in combination. A major focus of this work has been to prevent

2346-831: The Arkansas River , joining the Mississippi at Arkansas Post ; the Big Black River in Mississippi; and the Yazoo River , meeting the Mississippi at Vicksburg, Mississippi . Deliberate water diversion at the Old River Control Structure in Louisiana allows the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana to be a major distributary of the Mississippi River, with 30% of the combined flow of the Mississippi and Red Rivers flowing to

2448-687: The Coast Ranges and the Kings River in the Sierra Nevada . Above a threshold elevation of 207 to 210 feet (63 to 64 m), it overflowed northward into the then-extant Summit Lake (southwest of Riverdale) , thence via Fresno Slough to the San Joaquin River . This happened in 19 of 29 years from 1850 to 1878. No overflows occurred after 1878 due to increasing diversions of tributary waters for agricultural irrigation and municipal water uses. By 1899,

2550-513: The Gulf of Mexico , part of the Atlantic Ocean. The total catchment of the Mississippi River covers nearly 40% of the landmass of the continental United States. The highest point within the watershed is also the highest point of the Rocky Mountains , Mount Elbert at 14,440 feet (4,400 m). In the United States, the Mississippi River drains the majority of the area between the crest of

2652-655: The Mexican-American War . United States settlers began entering the Tulare Basin in 1826. The first settler to enter the San Joaquin Valley was Jedediah Smith . In 1854, Grizzly Adams hunted on Pelican Island, "where there was said to be elk in abundance." Children from a village on the mouth of the Kings River guided him to the island on a canoe made of tules. In 1858 or 1859, settlers began ethnically cleansing Tulare Lake, by killing or forcibly relocating

2754-582: The Minnesota River , James River , and Milk River valleys. When the ice sheet completely retreated, many of these "temporary" rivers found paths to Hudson Bay or the Arctic Ocean, leaving the Mississippi Basin with many features "over-sized" for the existing rivers to have carved in the same time period. Ice sheets during the Illinoian Stage , about 300,000 to 132,000 years before present, blocked

2856-556: The Ohio and Missouri , formed pathways for the western expansion of the United States. The river also became the subject of American literature , particularly in the writings of Mark Twain . Formed from thick layers of the river's silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile regions of the United States; steamboats were widely used in the 19th and early 20th centuries to ship agricultural and industrial goods. During

2958-1226: The Rock River at the Quad Cities ; the Iowa River near Wapello, Iowa ; the Skunk River south of Burlington, Iowa ; and the Des Moines River at Keokuk, Iowa . Other major tributaries of the Upper Mississippi include the Crow River in Minnesota, the Chippewa River in Wisconsin, the Maquoketa River and the Wapsipinicon River in Iowa, and the Illinois River in Illinois. The Upper Mississippi

3060-531: The Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota , Wisconsin , Iowa , Illinois , Missouri , Kentucky , Tennessee , Arkansas , Mississippi , and Louisiana . The main stem is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is 1,151,000 sq mi (2,980,000 km ), of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as

3162-836: The Rocky Mountains and the crest of the Appalachian Mountains , except for various regions drained to Hudson Bay by the Red River of the North ; to the Atlantic Ocean by the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River ; and to the Gulf of Mexico by the Rio Grande , the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, the Chattahoochee and Appalachicola rivers, and various smaller coastal waterways along

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3264-429: The headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all contain locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river. Taken as a whole, these 43 dams significantly shape the geography and influence the ecology of the upper river. Beginning just below Saint Paul, Minnesota , and continuing throughout

3366-459: The lake ecosystem habitats resulted in substantial losses of terrestrial animals , plants , aquatic animals , water plants , and resident and migrating birds . Yoimut , who spent a significant part of her life on the lake, warned ethnographer Frank F. Latta that the lake would return. In 1938 and 1955, the lake flooded, which prompted the construction of the Terminus and Success Dams on

3468-483: The most recent Ice Age . The southernmost extent of this enormous glaciation extended well into the present-day United States and Mississippi basin. When the ice sheet began to recede, hundreds of feet of rich sediment were deposited, creating the flat and fertile landscape of the Mississippi Valley. During the melt, giant glacial rivers found drainage paths into the Mississippi watershed, creating such features as

3570-461: The tule elk and pronghorn antelope were of economic importance to Native American peoples living in the area. Grizzly Adams hunted tule elk on Pelican Island in the 1850s. The re-emergence of the lake can lead to explosions of the mosquito population in the area, which raises the concern of mosquito borne illness for people living in the area. The Tulare Lake region has been continually inhabited for more than 10,000 years. The Witt Site , on

3672-561: The Chunut to the east, and the Tachi to the north and west. European exploration into the Tulare Basin area began in 1805 with Fr. Juan Martin, who was the first European to see the lake. He arrived in Wowol territory following a three-day trip from the coast. In 1816, Luís Antonio Martinez destroyed the rancheria of Bubal, burning the village, scattering their grain, and smashing their grinding stones. He

3774-561: The Earth's mantle (specifically, the Bermuda hotspot ) that was undergoing a period of intense activity. The upwelling of magma from the hotspot forced the further uplift to a height of perhaps 2–3 km of part of the Appalachian-Ouachita range, forming an arch that blocked southbound water flows. The uplifted land quickly eroded and, as North America moved away from the hot spot and as

3876-400: The French rendering of the Anishinaabe ( Ojibwe or Algonquin ) name for the river, Misi-ziibi (Great River). In the 18th century, the river was set by the Treaty of Paris as, for the most part, the western border of the new United States. With the Louisiana Purchase and the country's westward expansion, it became a convenient boundary line between the western and eastern halves of

3978-588: The Gulf of Mexico by this route, rather than continuing down the Mississippi's current channel past Baton Rouge and New Orleans on a longer route to the Gulf. Although the Red River was once an additional tributary, its water now flows separately into the Gulf of Mexico through the Atchafalaya River. The Mississippi River has the world's fourth-largest drainage basin ("watershed" or "catchment"). The basin covers more than 1,245,000 square miles (3,220,000 km ), including all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. The drainage basin empties into

4080-409: The Gulf. The Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico about 100 miles (160 km) downstream from New Orleans. Measurements of the length of the Mississippi from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico vary somewhat, but the United States Geological Survey 's number is 2,340 miles (3,766 km). The retention time from Lake Itasca to the Gulf is typically about 90 days; while speed varies along

4182-404: The Illinoian Stage. Timeline of outflow course changes In March 1876, the Mississippi suddenly changed course near the settlement of Reverie, Tennessee , leaving a small part of Tipton County, Tennessee , attached to Arkansas and separated from the rest of Tennessee by the new river channel. Since this event was an avulsion , rather than the effect of incremental erosion and deposition,

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4284-446: The Kaweah and Tule Rivers in Tulare County and Pine Flat Dam on the Kings River in Fresno County. Although usually dry, the lake reappears during floods following unusually high levels of rainfall or snow melt; for this reason, it has been called a "phantom lake," "the lake that will not die," or California’s zombie lake. Estimates have found that Tulare Lake could hold twice the water of the proposed Temperance Flat Dam at one-fifth

4386-408: The Midwestern and eastern U.S. These earthquakes created Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee from the altered landscape near the river. When measured from its traditional source at Lake Itasca , the Mississippi has a length of 2,340 miles (3,766 km). When measured from its longest stream source (most distant source from the sea), Brower's Spring in Montana , the source of the Missouri River , it has

4488-416: The Mississippi River between Saint Paul and Saint Louis is between 9 and 12 feet (2.7–3.7 m) deep, the deepest part being Lake Pepin , which averages 20–32 feet (6–10 m) deep and has a maximum depth of 60 feet (18 m). Between where the Missouri River joins the Mississippi at Saint Louis, Missouri, and Cairo, Illinois, the depth averages 30 feet (9 m). Below Cairo, where the Ohio River joins,

4590-411: The Mississippi River has experienced numerous large and small changes to its main course, as well as additions, deletions, and other changes among its numerous tributaries, and the lower Mississippi River has used different pathways as its main channel to the Gulf of Mexico across the delta region. As Pangaea began to break up about 95 million years ago, North America passed over a volcanic " hotspot " in

4692-415: The Mississippi River near New Madrid, Missouri , between Memphis and St. Louis, is related to an aulacogen (failed rift) that formed at the same time as the Gulf of Mexico. This area is still quite active seismically. Four great earthquakes in 1811 and 1812 , estimated at 8 on the Richter magnitude scale , had tremendous local effects in the then sparsely settled area, and were felt in many other places in

4794-404: The Mississippi near Rock Island, Illinois, diverting it to its present channel farther to the west, the current western border of Illinois. The Hennepin Canal roughly follows the ancient channel of the Mississippi downstream from Rock Island to Hennepin, Illinois . South of Hennepin, to Alton, Illinois , the current Illinois River follows the ancient channel used by the Mississippi River before

4896-529: The Missouri River; the Middle Mississippi, which is downriver from the Missouri to the Ohio River; and the Lower Mississippi , which flows from the Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico. The Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri. It is divided into two sections: The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca , 1,475 feet (450 m) above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, Minnesota . The name Itasca

4998-443: The Ohio River confluence, the Middle Mississippi falls 220 feet (67 m) over 180 miles (290 km) for an average rate of 1.2 feet per mile (23 cm/km). At its confluence with the Ohio River, the Middle Mississippi is 315 feet (96 m) above sea level. Apart from the Missouri and Meramec rivers of Missouri and the Kaskaskia River of Illinois, no major tributaries enter the Middle Mississippi River. The Mississippi River

5100-532: The Sand Ridge area include Buena Vista Lake shrew ( Sorex ornatus relictus ), southwestern pond turtle ( Actinemys pallida ), fulvous whistling duck ( Dendrocygna bicolor ), least bittern ( Ixobrychus exilis ), California red-legged frog ( Rana aurora draytonii ), giant garter snake ( Thamnophis gigas ). and the extinct Thicktail chub fish. Other species native or present in the area are sandhill cranes and tricolored blackbird . Historically attested species (sometimes present in nearby placenames) like

5202-430: The Upper Mississippi River is the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in Minneapolis. Above the dam, the river's elevation is 799 feet (244 m). Below the dam, the river's elevation is 750 feet (230 m). This 49-foot (15 m) drop is the largest of all the Mississippi River locks and dams. The origin of the dramatic drop is a waterfall preserved adjacent to the lock under an apron of concrete. Saint Anthony Falls

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5304-426: The Upper Mississippi is a simple steel culvert, through which the river (locally named "Nicolet Creek") flows north from Lake Nicolet under "Wilderness Road" to the West Arm of Lake Itasca, within Itasca State Park . The earliest bridge across the Mississippi River was built in 1855. It spanned the river in Minneapolis where the current Hennepin Avenue Bridge is located. No highway or railroad tunnels cross under

5406-555: The areas drained by them. Denser salt water from the Gulf of Mexico forms a salt wedge along the river bottom near the mouth of the river, while fresh water flows near the surface. In drought years, with less fresh water to push it out, salt water can travel many miles upstream—64 miles (103 km) in 2022—contaminating drinking water supplies and requiring the use of desalination . The United States Army Corps of Engineers constructed "saltwater sills" or "underwater levees" to contain this in 1988, 1999, 2012, and 2022. This consists of

5508-422: The case, but that during the pestilence of 1833 this tribe was probably killed by the same plague which almost entirely depopulated the entire San Joaquin Valley. Native ecosystems of the region ranged from saltbrush scrub and alkali sink to valley grassland and wetland. Today, alfalfa is grown on some parts of the southern basin and invasive saltcedar is recorded in natural habitats. Indigenous fauna of

5610-407: The communities of Alpaugh and Allensworth were under evacuation orders due to concerns that they might become flooded. Some floodwaters were diverted to alleviate flooding on farms. The Kern National Wildlife Refuge received its full water allocation in 2023. Located about 4 miles (6.4 km) south, the wetlands provide habitat for birds as part of the Pacific Flyway . As of February 1, 2024,

5712-414: The construction of multimillion-dollar levees . The numerous storms that struck California during the first few months of 2023 resulted in the reappearance of over 114,000 acres (46,000 ha) of the lake, forcing the evacuation of several communities and causing the flooding of hundreds of farm buildings and homes amidst the land farmed by agricultural operations on the former lakebed. Parts of

5814-422: The cost. The Tachi Yokuts and many other people and organizations are trying to restore the lake permanently for various reasons including environmental purposes, water storage and Native American land reclaiming. The lake reappeared in 1942, 1969, 1983, 1997, 1998, and 2023. In 1983, the lake took two years to dry out. In June 1998, an above-normal winter snowfall led to the lake reappearing, reaching

5916-411: The country. This is reflected in the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, which was designed to symbolize the opening of the West, and the focus on the " Trans-Mississippi " region in the Trans-Mississippi Exposition . Regional landmarks are often classified in relation to the river, such as "the highest peak east of the Mississippi " or "the oldest city west of the Mississippi". The FCC also uses it as

6018-427: The course of the river, this gives an overall average of around 26 mi (42 km) per day, or 1 mi (1.6 km) per hour. The stream gradient of the entire river is 0.01%, a drop of 450 m over 3,766 km. The Mississippi River discharges at an annual average rate of between 200 and 700 thousand cubic feet per second (6,000 and 20,000 m /s). The Mississippi is the fourteenth largest river in

6120-403: The delta of the Chippewa River of Wisconsin as it enters the Upper Mississippi, is more than 2 miles (3.2 km) wide. By the time the Upper Mississippi reaches Saint Paul , Minnesota, below Lock and Dam No. 1, it has dropped more than half its original elevation and is 687 feet (209 m) above sea level. From St. Paul to St. Louis, Missouri, the river elevation falls much more slowly and

6222-532: The depth averages 50–100 feet (15–30 m) deep. The deepest part of the river is in New Orleans, where it reaches 200 feet (61 m) deep. The Mississippi River runs through or along 10 states, from Minnesota to Louisiana , and is used to define portions of these states' borders, with Wisconsin , Illinois , Kentucky , Tennessee , and Mississippi along the east side of the river, and Iowa , Missouri , and Arkansas along its west side. Substantial parts of both Minnesota and Louisiana are on either side of

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6324-405: The dividing line for broadcast call-signs , which begin with W to the east and K to the west, overlapping in media markets along the river. Due to its size and importance, it has been nicknamed The Mighty Mississippi River or simply The Mighty Mississippi . The Mississippi River can be divided into three sections: the Upper Mississippi , the river from its headwaters to the confluence with

6426-461: The great wheat-fields." That same year, Scientific American predicted the "utter absorption" of Tulare Lake. The Kaweah, Kern, Kings, and Tule Rivers were dammed upstream in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which turned their headwaters into a system of reservoirs . In the San Joaquin Valley, the state and counties built canals to deliver that water and divert the remaining flows for agricultural irrigation and municipal water uses. Tulare Lake

6528-441: The hotspot's activity declined, the crust beneath the embayment region cooled, contracted and subsided to a depth of 2.6 km, and around 80 million years ago the Reelfoot Rift formed a trough that was flooded by the Gulf of Mexico . As sea levels dropped, the Mississippi and other rivers extended their courses into the embayment , which gradually became filled with sediment with the Mississippi River at its center. Through

6630-400: The hunger strike, committed suicide by hanging himself while in a Security Housing Unit (SHU). He had been protesting from July 8 to July 21. Sell's death caused significant controversy, as inmate advocates reported that fellow prisoners had heard Sell asking for medical attention for several days before his eventual suicide. His suicide triggered reviews of the circumstances behind his death at

6732-513: The island and subsequently forcing the indigenous people out: While we were at Chawlowin some white men put cattle on the island. The water was low and they drove them across from the east. There were hogs there already, but they were wild. As soon as the white people found out we were there we began to have trouble. The tules were getting dry and we were afraid the white people would burn us out. So we all left. My mother and stepfather took us to Téjon Ranch. We went in his brother's little wagon. In

6834-444: The island. In early history, it was the site of the Wowol village, Chawlowin. Today the city of Alpaugh, California , sits on the remnants of Atwell's Island. Atwell Island was the largest of the Tulare Lake archipelago and has the latest recorded habitation by indigenous peoples. A Bird Island is shown in an 1876 map at the tip of Atwell Island's 'teardrop' shape which shows a small, oblate island. A Wowol village on Atwell's Island

6936-465: The lake was dry except for residual wetlands and occasional floods. Tulare Lake was the largest of several lakes in its lower basin. Most of the Kern River's flow first went into Kern Lake and Buena Vista Lake via the Kern River and Kern River Slough southwest and south of the site of Bakersfield . If they overflowed, it was through the Kern River channel northwest through tule marshland and Goose Lake, into Tulare Lake. During times of high water,

7038-479: The lake, leaving the Buena Vista , Kern and Tulare Lakes as remnants. The lake was part of a 13,700-square-mile (35,400 km ) partially endorheic basin , at the south end of the San Joaquin Valley , where it received water from the Kern , Tule , and Kaweah Rivers , as well as from southern distributaries of the Kings . It was separated from the rest of the San Joaquin Valley by tectonic subsidence and alluvial fans extending out from Los Gatos Creek in

7140-553: The lakebed. Skull Island is one of the more locally famous landmarks. Frank F. Latta identifies it with the Calaveres [ sic ] of the early Spanish settlers. Yoimut (Josie Alonzo) described a village, Witi'tsolo wın , probably on or near the site, to Anna Hadwick Gayton , which she visited between 1860 and 1870. Throughout the 19th century it was common for settlers in the Central Valley to raid Skull Island. Dr. William Ferguson Cartmill, who numerous streets are named after in Tulare County , took several skulls from

7242-402: The last two decades, this number was only 160 million short tons (145 million metric tons) per year. The reduction in sediment transported down the Mississippi River is the result of engineering modification of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio rivers and their tributaries by dams, meander cutoffs , river-training structures, and bank revetments and soil erosion control programs in

7344-520: The late Pleistocene . According to the Bureau of Land Management , Sand Ridge "has yielded artifacts spanning the entire cultural horizon in California." Historical research by William Preston suggests that European-introduced epidemics may have devastated Lake Indians as early as 1500. At the point of European contact, three Yokuts nations inhabited the Tulare Lake area. The Wowol, to the southern margin,

7446-426: The local, state, and federal level; with Amnesty International calling for an independent inquiry into his death, one without ties to the government. Tulare Lake 203 ft (62 m) Tulare Lake ( / t ʊ ˈ l ɛər i / ) or Tache Lake ( Yokuts : Pah-áh-su , Pah-áh-sē ) is a freshwater lake in the southern San Joaquin Valley, California , United States. Historically, Tulare Lake

7548-546: The lower 10 miles (16 km) of the Kaskaskia River, forming a new Mississippi channel and cutting off the town from the rest of the state. Later flooding destroyed most of the remaining town, including the original State House. Today, the remaining 2,300 acres (930 ha) island and community of 14 residents is known as an enclave of Illinois and is accessible only from the Missouri side. The New Madrid Seismic Zone , along

7650-415: The lower Mississippi from shifting into the channel of the Atchafalaya River and bypassing New Orleans . Since the 20th century, the Mississippi River has also experienced major pollution and environmental problems — most notably elevated nutrient and chemical levels from agricultural runoff, the primary contributor to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone . The word Mississippi itself comes from Misi zipi ,

7752-553: The majority of the Yokuts population. Severe floods in 1861 and 1867 killed thousands of cattle and caused settlers to request further dams on the inflows to Tulare Lake. From 1875 to 1877, large numbers of hogs and cattle were carried to Skull Island from the mainland on the Mose Andross . Presumably the last autonomous Indigenous people lived at the Tulare Lake archipelago in the 1870s. Yoimut detailed white settlers introducing cattle to

7854-505: The mountains, and later, studying the general condition of the valley floor and foothills until the Mewalk throught [ sic ] them safe for reoccupation. These centarians were Pahmit, San Joaquin River Dumna; Sahn-e-hat, Tule River Yaudanche, and To-tu-yah, Yosemite Valley Mewalk. Totuyah and Pahmit actually knew of the Mewalk moving down into the vacant Yokuts territory. Skull Island

7956-440: The native way of life as first explorers, then settlers, ventured into the basin in increasing numbers. The river served sometimes as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain , New France , and the early United States, and throughout as a vital transportation artery and communications link. In the 19th century, during the height of the ideology of manifest destiny , the Mississippi and several tributaries, most notably its largest,

8058-449: The new river channel, contiguous with the adjacent state. Also, due to a meander in the river, a small part of western Kentucky is contiguous with Tennessee but isolated from the rest of its state. Many of the communities along the Mississippi River are listed below; most have either historic significance or cultural lore connecting them to the river. They are sequenced from the source of the river to its end. The road crossing highest on

8160-574: The old days used to be full of malaria that will now be a thing of the past. Skull Island, surrounded by wheat fields, was eventually raided by grave robbers . Enough water remained that the Alameda Naval Air Station used Tulare Lake as an outlying seaplane base during World War II and the early years of the Cold War . Flying boats could land on Tulare Lake when landing conditions were unsafe on San Francisco Bay . The lake bed became

8262-596: The old village at the mouth of Deer Creek and White River because they would come back and get them. They were hid in the tules in tumlus ( toom-loos ) houses at the north side of the Island. Gull Island was a small islet at the mouth of the Tule River , extending westward from the south bank of the Tule River. It was a narrow bar which was low, muddy, and had no vegetation. It was named for the large number of gulls which nested at

8364-598: The past 5,000 years, caused the coastline of south Louisiana to advance toward the Gulf from 15 to 50 miles (24 to 80 km). The currently active delta lobe is called the Birdfoot Delta, after its shape, or the Balize Delta , after La Balize, Louisiana , the first French settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi. The current form of the Mississippi River basin was largely shaped by the Laurentide Ice Sheet of

8466-538: The plume did not mix with the surrounding sea water immediately. Instead, it stayed intact as it flowed through the Gulf of Mexico, into the Straits of Florida , and entered the Gulf Stream . The Mississippi River water rounded the tip of Florida and traveled up the southeast coast to the latitude of Georgia before finally mixing in so thoroughly with the ocean that it could no longer be detected by MODIS. Over geologic time,

8568-581: The ridge of high ground separating the upper Chintache basin from the lower Tontache basin became an archipelago in the southern part of the lake. During times of low water, this ridge created two separate lakes. Today, these former islands make up the Sand Ridge in Kings County . The largest of these islands, Atwell's Island, was originally known as Hog-Root Island or Root Island. It was owned by Allen J. Atwell of Visalia, California , who introduced hogs onto

8670-479: The river, although the Mississippi defines part of the boundary of each of these states. In all of these cases, the middle of the riverbed at the time the borders were established was used as the line to define the borders between adjacent states. In various areas, the river has since shifted, but the state borders have not changed, still following the former bed of the Mississippi River as of their establishment, leaving several small isolated areas of one state across

8772-407: The shores of Tulare Lake, has yielded fluted and stemmed points from Paleoindian cultures, flaked stone crescents, Pinto points, drills, and limaces or "humpies." Fragmented mineralized bone have been identified as horse ( Equus ), bison ( Bison ), ground sloth ( Paramylodon ), and mammoth ( Mammuthus ) or mastodon ( Mammut ). The Sand Ridge area has similarly been occupied since at least

8874-401: The site and kept them in his house. Local legend holds of a great "Indian battle" that took place at Skull Island. It is far more likely that the mass grave on Skull Island was due to an epidemic, probably smallpox . For many years the tradition was that these unburied skeletons were the results of a great Indian battle. We can well believe upon good authority that [the battle] was really not

8976-400: The site of the head of navigation of the river. The Upper Mississippi has a number of natural and artificial lakes, with its widest point being Lake Winnibigoshish , near Grand Rapids, Minnesota , over 11 miles (18 km) across. Lake Onalaska , created by Lock and Dam No. 7 , near La Crosse, Wisconsin , is more than 4 miles (6.4 km) wide. Lake Pepin , a natural lake formed behind

9078-479: The site. Pelican Island was formed from deposits of the Kings River as an extension of its east channel, about a mile long and ten to sixty feet wide in 1883. It was named, as with Gull Island, for the vast number of white pelicans that nested on there. Cormorants also were present. Skull Island extended between five and six miles and was just over half a mile wide, the highest part being about twenty feet above

9180-524: The state line still follows the old channel. The town of Kaskaskia, Illinois once stood on a peninsula at the confluence of the Mississippi and Kaskaskia (Okaw) Rivers . Founded as a French colonial community, it later became the capital of the Illinois Territory and was the first state capital of Illinois until 1819. Beginning in 1844, successive flooding caused the Mississippi River to slowly encroach east. A major flood in 1881 caused it to overtake

9282-567: The upper and lower river, the Mississippi is further controlled by thousands of wing dikes that moderate the river's flow in order to maintain an open navigation channel and prevent the river from eroding its banks. The head of navigation on the Mississippi is the St. Anthony Falls Lock. Before the Coon Rapids Dam in Coon Rapids, Minnesota , was built in 1913, steamboats could occasionally go upstream as far as Saint Cloud, Minnesota , depending on river conditions. The uppermost lock and dam on

9384-593: The wake of the United States Civil War , late 19th-century settlers drained the surrounding marshes for agriculture. In 1884 , Scottish travel writer Constance Gordon-Cumming warned that "[e]ven the great Tulare lake itself is in danger of being gradually absorbed by the numerous canals and ditches with which the whole country is now being intersected...[t]he poor lakes have simply been left to starve—the rivers, whose surplus waters hitherto fed them, having now been bridled and led away in ditches and canals to feed

9486-410: The water only covered 4,532 acres of farmland. In 1967, a documentary film about the J.G. Boswell Company’s achievements and variety of California's agricultural industry titled The Big Land directed by David H. Vowell was released. TV personality Huell Howser visited Tulare Lake in an episode of his show, California's Gold , in 1999. Mississippi River The Mississippi River

9588-473: The world by volume. On average, the Mississippi has 8% the flow of the Amazon River , which moves nearly 7 million cubic feet per second (200,000 m /s) during wet seasons. Before 1900, the Mississippi River transported an estimated 440 million short tons (400 million metric tons) of sediment per year from the interior of the United States to coastal Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. During

9690-513: The world's tenth-largest river by discharge flow, and the largest in North America. Native Americans have lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries for thousands of years. Many were hunter-gatherers , but some, such as the Mound Builders , formed prolific agricultural and urban civilizations, and some practiced aquaculture . The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed

9792-496: Was chosen to designate the "true head" of the Mississippi River as a combination of the last four letters of the Latin word for truth ( ver itas ) and the first two letters of the Latin word for head ( ca put ). However, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, Missouri , the waterway's flow is moderated by 43 dams. Fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in

9894-582: Was heavily criticized for his cruelty by Father Juan Cabot, who was present on the expedition. According to Frank F. Latta , there was an epidemic around 1833 that wiped out nearly the entire western San Joaquin Valley: At least three centenarians among my Yokuts informants were children here at that time. They were able to verify the existence of such an occurrence and to give me some account of it: burial of dead bodies until there were not enough survivors to make burials; abandonment of village sites, fleeing to

9996-462: Was killed by mistake". Furthermore, the article alleged that "officers ... and their supervisors staged fights between inmates" during " gladiator days". In November 1996, CBS Evening News broadcast "video footage of an inmate fatally shot by guards" at COR in 1994; this death "spawned a probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of alleged inmate abuses by guards". A March 1997 episode of

10098-465: Was named Chawlowin. It was occupied after 1852 by refugee Yokuts natives. Yoimut described semi-traditional life at Chawlowin: My mother found almost all of her relations there at Chawlowin. Her brother had his family there and two or three of her uncles were there, too. They had all come back to that camp from Tule River Reservation, where the soldiers had taken them from Téjon Ranch. They wanted to stay at their old home. These people did not go back to

10200-399: Was nearly dry by the early 20th century. Swedish naturalist Gustav Eisen , who crossed the lake by steamboat in 1878 and undertook an excavation of Sand Ridge probably that same year, celebrated the desiccation. He wrote, In my opinion the drying up of Tulare Lake is a good thing. The land will be good for crops and there will be less sickness in the vicinity. The sloughs and marsh land in

10302-488: Was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River . For thousands of years, from the Paleolithic onward, Tulare Lake was a uniquely rich area, which supported perhaps the largest population of Native Americans north of present-day Mexico. In the second half of the 19th century, Tulare Lake was dried up by diverting its tributary rivers for agricultural irrigation and municipal water uses. In modern times, it

10404-447: Was probably a result of this epidemic, as Latta's informants specifically note that bodies were too high in quantity for the living to bury them. Two Mexican land grants were claimed in 1843, one between Kings River and Cross Creek, and another, Manuel Castro's Rancho Laguna de Tache on the north bank of the Kings River. John C. Frémont led a United States military expedition across California, including Tulare Lake, immediately before

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