This article is about the river in Missouri and Arkansas. For the river in Minnesota, see St. Francis River (Minnesota)

The Saint Francis River is a tributary of the Mississippi River, about 470 mi (760 km) long, in southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas in the United States. The river drains a mostly rural area and forms part of the Missouri-Arkansas state line along the western side of the Missouri bootheel.

Description and course

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The river rises in a region of granite mountains in Iron County, Missouri, and flows generally southwardly through the Ozarks and the St. Francois Mountains and through Lake Wappapello, which is formed by a dam constructed in 1941. Below the dam the river meanders through cane forests and willow swamplands, transitioning from a clear stream into a slow and silt-laden muddy river as it enters the flat lands of the Mississippi embayment. In its lower course the river parallels Crowleys Ridge and is part of a navigation and flood-control project involving a network of diversion channels and ditches along it and the Castor and Little Rivers. Below the mouth of the Little River in Poinsett County, Arkansas, the St. Francis is navigable by barge. It joins the Mississippi River in Phillips County, Arkansas, about 7 mi (11 km) north of Helena.

Along its course in Missouri the river flows through the Mark Twain National Forest and past Sam A. Baker State Park and the towns of Farmington, Greenville and Fisk. In Arkansas it passes the towns of St. Francis, Lake City, Marked Tree and Parkin, as well as the St. Francis National Forest.

In addition to the Little River, tributaries of the St. Francis include the Little St. Francis River, which joins it along its upper course in Missouri; the Tyronza River, which joins it in Arkansas; and the L'Anguille River, which joins it just above its mouth.

Variant names

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The United States Board on Geographic Names settled on "St. Francis River" as the stream's name in 1899. According to the Geographic Names Information System, historical names for the river have included:

• Cholohollay River
• El Rio San Francisco
• Fiume San Francesco
• Rio San Francisco

• Riviere Saint Francis
• Riviere des Chepoussea
• Saint Francois River
• San Francisco River

See also

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• List of Arkansas rivers
• List of Missouri rivers
• River borders of U.S. states

References

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• Columbia Gazetteer of North America entry
• DeLorme (2004). Arkansas Atlas & Gazetteer. Yarmouth, Maine: DeLorme. ISBN 0-89933-345-1.
• DeLorme (2002). Missouri Atlas & Gazetteer. Yarmouth, Maine: DeLorme. ISBN 0-89933-353-2.
• GNIS entry

Rivers of Arkansas | Rivers of Missouri | Tributaries of the Mississippi River