The Yellow Medicine River is a tributary of the Minnesota River, 107 miles (173 km) long, in southwestern Minnesota in the United States. Via the Minnesota River, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River, draining an area of 665 square miles (1,722 km²) in an agricultural region. Its name is a translation of the Dakota name for the river, pajutazee, ("huta" meaning "root," "zi" meaning "yellow," and "kapi" meaning "they dig"),
The Yellow Medicine River issues from Lake Shaokatan in Shaokatan Township in western Lincoln County, approximately six miles (10 km) southwest of Ivanhoe, on the Coteau des Prairies, a morainic plateau dividing the Mississippi and Missouri River watersheds. It flows initially northeastwardly as an intermittent stream, past Ivanhoe. The stream flows off the Coteau in northeastern Lincoln County, dropping 250 feet (75 m) in five miles (8 km), and turns east-northeastwardly, following a generally treeless course on till plains through northern Lyon County and eastern Yellow Medicine County, past Hanley Falls. It flows into the Minnesota River in Upper Sioux Agency State Park in Sioux Agency Township, approximately eight miles (13 km) southeast of Granite Falls, after dropping 85 feet (30 m) in its final ten miles (15 km) in the Minnesota River valley.
The Yellow Medicine River's largest tributaries are the North Branch Yellow Medicine River and the South Branch Yellow Medicine River, both of which flow for most of their lengths on the Coteau. The North Branch, 41 miles (66 km) long, flows northeastwardly through northern Lincoln County, briefly entering Yellow Medicine County and passing through Porter. The South Branch, 62 miles (99 km) long, flows northeastwardly through Lincoln County into northwestern Lyon County, past Minneota. Other tributaries of the Yellow Medicine include Spring Creek, 46 miles (74 km) long, which flows eastwardly through Yellow Medicine County; and Mud Creek, 31 miles (50 km) long, which flows eastwardly through western Yellow Medicine County into northwestern Lyon County.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency statistically combines the watershed of the Yellow Medicine River with that of Hawk Creek on the opposite bank of the Minnesota River, as well as small watersheds of nearby Minnesota River tributaries. According to the agency, 81% of the land in the Yellow Medicine-Hawk Creek watersheds is used for agriculture, with corn and soybeans being the predominant crops.
Species of fish in the Yellow Medicine River include catfish, carp, northern pike, walleye, and bullhead.
Read more about Yellow Medicine River: Flow Rate
Famous quotes containing the words yellow, medicine and/or river:
“Pigeons on the grass alas.
Pigeons on the grass alas.
Short longer grass short longer longer shorter yellow
grass Pigeons large pigeons on the shorter longer yellow grass
alas pigeons on the grass.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“I have noticed that doctors who fail in the practice of medicine have a tendency to seek one another’s company and aid in consultation. A doctor who cannot take out your appendix properly will recommend you to a doctor who will be unable to remove your tonsils with success.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“I counted two and seventy stenches,
All well defined and several stinks!
Ye Nymphs that reign o’er sewers and sinks,
The river Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash your city of Cologne;
But tell me, Nymphs! what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)