Elk River, Minnesota

Elk River is a city in Sherburne County, Minnesota, United States, about 34 miles northwest of Minneapolis. It is situated at the confluence of the Mississippi and Elk Rivers. The population was 22,974 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat. The city's population exceeded 20,000 as of 2005. U.S. Highways 10 and 169 and State Highway 101 are three of the main routes in Elk River, and a station on the Northstar Commuter Rail line to downtown Minneapolis is located in the city. Elk River is located 33 miles northwest of Minneapolis and 37 miles southeast of St. Cloud.

History

The hardwood-forested hills in which Elk River is situated were pushed up by the last glacier that advanced across Minnesota. These hills are made up of coarse materials which is the reason gravel mining is so prevalent in Elk River, and also the reason much of the area is not considered good farmland.

To the south of Elk River lies the prairie. This natural boundary between the prairie and woods was also a boundary between Indian nations. Two battles between the Dakota and Ojibwe took place where the Elk River meets the Mississippi in 1772 and 1773.

Elk River

Elk River may refer to:

Rivers

Canada

United States

Poland

Places

Elk River (West Virginia)

The Elk River is a tributary of the Kanawha River, 172 miles (277 km) long, in central West Virginia in the United States. Via the Kanawha and Ohio rivers, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River.

Course

The Elk is formed in the Allegheny Mountains in Pocahontas County by the confluence of two short streams, the Big Spring Fork and the Old Field Fork, which join near the community of Slatyfork. It flows above ground for several miles before it sinks into a network of caverns and flows underground for more than five miles. The old riverbed of solid rock, however, remains above ground in this section known as "The Dries." It follows a generally westward course across the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau, through Randolph, Webster, Braxton, Clay, and Kanawha Counties, past the towns of Webster Springs, Sutton, Gassaway, Clay, Clendenin, and Elkview before joining the Kanawha River at Charleston.

At Sutton, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers concrete dam causes the Elk to form Sutton Lake.

Elk River (Oregon)

The Elk River is in southwestern Oregon in the United States. About 29 miles (47 km) long, the river drains a remote 92-square-mile (240 km²) area of the Coast Range into the Pacific Ocean.

Rising in the mountains in northern Curry County, in the Siskiyou National Forest at confluence of its north and south forks, the river initially flows generally west along the south edge of the Grassy Knob Wilderness. It then flows northwest, approaching the coast north of Port Orford and entering the Pacific between Cape Blanco to the north and The Heads to the south.

Course

From the confluence of its two forks, Elk River flows generally west and northwest for about 29 miles (47 km). All but the lowermost 10 miles (16 km) of it are in the Rogue River – Siskiyou National Forest. Forest Road 5325 follows the river along its left bank, becoming County Road 208 (Elk Creek Road) after leaving the national forest. County Road 208 ends when it reaches U.S. Route 101 about 3 miles (5 km) by water from the mouth of the river.

Minnesota

Minnesota (ⁱ/mɪnᵻˈsoʊtə/; locally  [ˌmɪnəˈso̞ɾə]) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd state on May 11, 1858, created from the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory. The name comes from the Dakota word for "clear blue water". Owing to its large number of lakes, the state is informally known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes". Its official motto is L'Étoile du Nord (French: Star of the North). Minnesota is the 12th largest in area and the 21st most populous of the U.S. States; nearly 60 percent of its residents live in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area (known as the "Twin Cities"), the center of transportation, business, industry, education, and government and home to an internationally known arts community. The remainder of the state consists of western prairies now given over to intensive agriculture; deciduous forests in the southeast, now partially cleared, farmed and settled; and the less populated North Woods, used for mining, forestry, and recreation.

Minnesota River

The Minnesota River is a tributary of the Mississippi River, approximately 332 miles (534 km) long, in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It drains a watershed of nearly 17,000 square miles (44,000 km²), 14,751 square miles (38,200 km²) in Minnesota and about 2,000 sq mi (5,200 km²) in South Dakota and Iowa.

It rises in southwestern Minnesota, in Big Stone Lake on the Minnesota–South Dakota border just south of the Laurentian Divide at the Traverse Gap portage. It flows southeast to Mankato, then turns northeast. It joins the Mississippi south of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, near the historic Fort Snelling. The valley is one of several distinct regions of Minnesota. Of Dakota language origin, the name Minnesota means "sky-tinted water or cloudy-sky water", from mní (often transcribed as "minne" or "mini") meaning "water" and sóta meaning "sky-tinted" or "cloudy sky", and, refers to the milky-brown color its waters take on when at flood stage. An illustration of the meaning of these words was shown by dropping a little milk into water. For over a century prior to the organization of the Minnesota Territory in 1849, the name St. Pierre (St. Peter) had been generally applied to the river by French and English explorers and writers. Minnesota River is shown on the 1757 edition of Mitchell Map as "Ouadebameniſsouté [Watpá Mnísota] or R. St. Peter". On June 19, 1852, acting upon a request from the Minnesota territorial legislature, the United States Congress decreed the aboriginal name for the river, Minnesota, to be the river’s official name and ordered all agencies of the federal government to use that name when referencing it.

Minnesota 78

Minnesota 78 is an old selection of grapevine, developed at the University of Minnesota, United States. It was extensively used in breeding by Elmer Swenson, with its Vitis riparia background providing a degree of adaptation to the harsh climate of the upper Midwest.

Although recorded as a cross of Beta by Witt, many have doubted this pedigree, and Swenson suggested that the male parent may be Jessica, a cross of Vitis labrusca by a variety of Vitis aestivalis. Because Witt appears to have been lost, prcluding genetic testing, the truth may never be known.

References