Talk:Wabash River

new picture of Wabash River
I think the Wabash would be better served by a picture in a rural setting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leomyhero (talk • contribs) 05:30, 14 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I like the current picture and would welcome additions -- not to "serve" (or promote) but to describe and explain. Please do sign your posts on talk pages! Malepheasant 06:51, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Historical Wabash
Contrary to Herb Shriner, I left Indiana. It was my home and I loved it, but career choices made it impossible to stay. I never forgot Indiana, nor it's most famous river, the Wabash.

I am now relearning Indiana and places that I fondly remember. The Wabash River is high on my list to visit soon.

For such a large and important river, certainly to Indiana and probably the nation, the Wabash seems to have little written about it. The celabration of the Wabash may be available, but I just haven't found it yet.

Many references can be found alluding to the time the river was used as a highway between the French provinces in the north and Louisiana in the south. There should be many stories...............but I can't find them.

My family goes back to the settlement of Indiana just as Indiana was becoming a state. They were in Clinton County when Clinton County was formed out of Tippicanoe County. They entered the area from Fort Pitt. The logical route to Clinton County would have been the Wabash River.....coming ashore near Lafayette.

The pre-1816 history should be charming. Stories should abound. Where are they? 76.184.191.89 13:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Merging in content from Wabash Valley
I came here because someone had put a "Discuss" tag on the Wabash Valley page re: merging the content from there into this article. Personally, I can understand the reasoning, since the Wabash Valley is one portion of the route of the Wabash River, but I also feel that doing so would squelch any potential expansion upon content about the region. I think there is room to list some of the more notable cities in the Wabash Valley, as well as some of the activities, traditions, and culture that the residents hold as uniquely theirs.--Lonadar (talk) 23:43, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Ecology? - Expert request
Any coverage of the ecological status of the river, its level of chemical contamination, its wildlife populations and changes in the aforementioned attributes seems to be missing at present. Where do we look for this kind of information? MrZaius talk  05:21, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Course
The beginning course of the Wabash is sketchy. It's not near Coldwater. The marker I posted is curious because it is on the Mercer/Darke County line on Mercer's side. Then it goes underneath 49 and goes into private farm land in Darke county. I will try and get a picture of the "geographic" beginning if the farmers let me. --Dana60Cummins (talk) 16:27, 13 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks that would be nice to have. The source I used in writing that section says it begins a spring, possibly fed from a nearby lake or stream. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 16:51, 13 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Sheer speculation by someone who's never been there to look. In the early 19th century, the headwaters were probably some kind of slough or other watershed.  There aren't any natural springs in the area. Today, the drainage is a designed system of ditches, pipes and tiles on private property.  It doesn't become a free flowing natural waterway for hundreds of yards, maybe a mile or more. Sbalfour (talk) 00:43, 27 January 2019 (UTC)


 * My references proposed a variety of places for the headwaters, like south of Grand Lake(??) - that's roughly 12 miles northeast and lower elevation, possibly an oblique way of proposing that Grand Lake is the source of the water. How do they suppose the water gets up there to the Indiana border? The headwaters of a stream are going to be locally high places, usually sloped.  The headwaters of the Wabash aren't actually hard to find, just follow the stream.  Or, drive down Ohio 49 to the Darke County line, and stop at the roadside park. The headwaters are recognizably a stream there.  The stream peters out to the west in a few hundred yards, and follows a drainage ditch (not a natural landform) along a poultry pasture to a culvert, where drainage pipes pour into the ditch. Drainage tiles in the pasture substitute for natural headwaters.  It's hilarious where people who write promotional material think the place is and where the water comes from. I guess they don't want to say it's a ditch with a slurry of poultry dung. Sbalfour (talk) 00:25, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Serious reference issues
This shared the same reference as most of the page. I deleted it.

''The river begins as a small spring that comes up from the ground among large stones. The exact source of the water is unknown, but naturalists theorize it could be either the nearby Beaver Creek or Grand Lake.''

It's not a spring. It's all farm field run-off. Grand Lake is around 100ft lower than the beginning of the Wabash, so that's ruled out. Beaver Creak isn't anywhere close.

Being that this was referenced and wasn't even close to fact, the rest of this article needs lots of attention where this reference shows up. Help in whatever way you can.--Dana60Cummins (talk) 02:21, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Tributaries
Both the Little Wabash and the Embarrass rivers are named as the second largest tributary. Which is correct?Dpford1960 (talk) 15:28, 19 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Other sources invariably name the Tippecanoe River as a major tributary, as if it were second. The text says the Little Wabash River is a left-tributary; that's also wrong - it's a right-tributary along with the Tippecanoe and Embarras Rivers. As such, it's the second largest right-tributary behind the Embarras River, which is kind of a hokey way of saying it's the third largest tributary.  But I think we probably don't want to be doing this numbers game in the text, and just say it's another major tributary; it doesn't matter much except to hydrologists what number/size it is. Sbalfour (talk) 01:03, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Out of Place
This section doesn't seem to make much sense in an article about a river: "For nine years in the 1920s, the Grand Rapids Hotel and resort was situated in Wabash County, Illinois, near the Grand Rapids Dam on the Wabash River. The owner was Frederick Hinde Zimmerman. The hotel drew its clientele from all over the United States." Presumably, there were and are many hotels on or near the Wabash, so what makes this one so special that it is described in an article about the river? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.158.48.90 (talk) 12:49, 24 June 2015 (UTC)


 * You're right, I don't get it. Deleted. Sbalfour (talk) 21:18, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Discharge
The article says the discharge of the Wabash is 35,350 cubic feet per second, but it doesn't say where it is measured. It is best if articles say where the discharge is measured so that people know where the info is coming from. I don't think it is measured at the mouth because the discharge given would make the Wabash smaller than the Cumberland, when in fact, many reliable sources say the Wabash is the second largest tributary of the Ohio after the Tennessee SpidersMilk, Drink Spider Milk, it tastes good. (talk) 16:43, 17 January 2018 (UTC)


 * If a location isn't specified, I would assume it's being asserted as the discharge volume at the river mouth. The sources you cite appear to be referring to drainage basin size (a measure of land area, not water volume): "the 2nd largest tributary in area"; "the second largest Ohio River tributary system". Discharge volume is a different thing entirely. That said, such a figure requires a source citation, and I think it's fine to remove it on that basis, especially if a reliable source for it cannot be found. --TimK MSI (talk) 17:08, 17 January 2018 (UTC)


 * TimK MSI in river studies, how "big" a river is, or the "size", is usually a measure of discharge, when talking about basin size, it is usually specified as such SpidersMilk, Drink Spider Milk, it tastes good. (talk) 18:33, 17 January 2018 (UTC)


 * There are unnamed "river studies" and there are the words in the texts to which you linked: "In area" ≠ "in volume." "Tributary system" ≠ "discharge volume." --TimK MSI (talk) 19:05, 17 January 2018 (UTC)


 * TimK MSI the ref lists the Wabash discharge so I added it to the article.SpidersMilk, Drink Spider Milk, it tastes good. (talk) 19:23, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Lead description of course
The lead says the Wabash is a "river in the Midwestern United States that flows southwest from near the Indiana border in northwest Ohio, across northern and central Indiana to southern Illinois, where it forms the Illinois-Indiana border". The midwestern United States is a 12-state area. Someone looking for that river somewhere in 12 states could look for a while. It's basically a river in Indiana with headwaters in Ohio. Then you should be able to find it. While geopositionally, the headwaters are in the northwest quadrant of Ohio, in a common sense way they're just about in the middle of the western border. And it actually flows northwest from the Ohio border not southwest. It doesn't flow across central Indiana, it flows across northern Indiana then down or south in western Indiana. We need to put this all together elegantly, and restate the lead.

How about this: The Wabash River is a river in Ohio and Indiana, United States, that flows from the headwaters near the middle of Ohio's western border northwest then southwest across northern Indiana turning south along the Illinois border where the southern portion forms the Indiana-Illinois border before flowing into the Ohio River.

Sbalfour (talk) 19:00, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Length inconsistency
The lead says it's a 503-mile long river citing USGS, but the USGS flypage on the river says it's 475-miles long. The Indiana Dept. of Natural Resources also says it's 475 miles long. In the text, we say it pours into the Ohio River at mile 491. Sbalfour (talk) 21:34, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Structure of the article; copyvio?
The current text sections are History, Course, Tributaries (list), Cities & Towns (list), Fauna. About half the article and 90% of the citations (section Course) is a summary of Wabash River Guide Book by Jerry Hay. We plagiarized his layout idea for the section, and it wasn't a particularly good idea. It reads like a popularized hydrologist's report with some touristy information thrown in. If the author read our article, he'd recognize the section as a transcription of his book. We transliterated the text roughly into our own words, but that's not enough. If he would recognize it as his work then so should we. I think that section should go.

I've never written an article on a natural landform like a river, mountain, lake, woods, etc. But here's what I imagine an outline would look like:


 * Geology (most of the current History section) - how the river was formed
 * History - Native American settlements, discovery, Indian battles, canals
 * Geography (an abstraction of the current Course section) - where the river goes, the terrain around it, elevations, etc
 * Hydrology - the tributaries, dams, lakes, reservoirs, rapids, headwaters, mouth, length and discharge volume
 * Ecology - fauna and flora, pollution,
 * Irrigation and drinking water -
 * Recreation - boating, fishing, rafting, swimming, hiking & siteseeing,
 * Transportation - shipping, bridges, canals (formerly)
 * Towns and cities - a narrative, not a list, of why they got to be there
 * Culture - the state song and romance of the river
 * Map and Diagram - showing the river and major tributaries, towns and cities, dams, highways & bridges, reservoirs, and other notable features. The current map is both too detailed with regard to tributaries, and lacks towns, roads, bridges, dams and reservoirs

Sbalfour (talk) 16:02, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Discovery
The Wabash may have been crossed as early as 1591 by Hernando de Soto on his way to the Mississippi There is no doubt that by the time of Ouiatenon, founded 1717, that the Maumee-St. Mary's-Little River-Wabash-Ohio-Mississippi route from Lake Erie to the gulf of Mexico was a frequented passage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbalfour (talk • contribs) 23:12, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
 * ouabouskigou (Ohio) or ouaboukigou
 * French Jesuit Fathers voyages 1653-1673
 * Lasalle's 1669 expedition in Ohio Country
 * Joliet and Marquette's 1673 voyage
 * LaSalle's 1779 voyage

Dam at New Harmony
The site:"Discover Indiana" mentions a dam at New Harmony on the Wabash River so historically it wasn't always free flowing for 411 miles. I also posted on the New Harmony talk page --  Otr500 (talk) 17:19, 19 September 2022 (UTC)