Snake River
SNAKE RIVER
SNAKE RIVER, formerly the Lewis, a 1,038-mile stream that rises in Shoshone Lake in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, forms part of the Idaho-Oregon and the Idaho-Washington boundaries, and cuts across southeast Washington to empty into the Columbia River. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark followed the Snake from the Clearwater River in Idaho to the Columbia in 1805. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company and the Hudson's Bay Company battled each other in the fur-trapping business up and down the stream through the early nineteenth century. The Oregon Trail paralleled the river closely for some four hundred miles. In the twentieth century, numerous irrigation canals and hydroelectric power projects were established along the Snake.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Palmer, Tim. The Snake River: Window to the West. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1991.
Alvin F.Harlow/f. b.
See alsoLewis and Clark Expedition .