DuPage River

Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Template other Template:Side box The DuPage River is a tributary of the Des Plaines River in the U.S. state of Illinois.

Course

The river begins as two individual streams. The West Branch of the DuPage River, long, starts at Campanelli Park in Schaumburg within Cook County and continues southward through the entire county of DuPage, including the towns of Bartlett, Wayne, West Chicago, Wheaton, Warrenville, Winfield and Naperville (including through its riverwalk), as well as McDowell Grove. The East Branch of the DuPage River, long, begins in Bloomingdale and flows southward through Glendale Heights, Glen Ellyn, Lisle, Woodridge, parts of Naperville and parts of Bolingbrook. St. Joseph Creek, a tributary of the river's East Branch, runs through the small town of Belmont and onward into Downers Grove. The two branches meet at the southern end of Knoch Knolls Park, between Naperville and Bolingbrook. The combined DuPage River continues southward from that point, through Plainfield & Shorewood and then west of Joliet. Farther downstream, at Channahon, a dam on the river was originally constructed to raise the DuPage River water level to feed the Illinois and Michigan Canal. From Channahon, the river finally meets the Des Plaines River.

Flooding

Like many local bodies of water, both branches of the DuPage River seriously overflowed after the "Flood of 1996", when approximately of rain fell on the area within a 24-hour period, on July 17–18 of that year. Other flooding was also very common, along Washington Street in Naperville and Illinois Route 53 in Glen Ellyn, because those roads are close to their respective branches of the river, and along the river in Plainfield. The City of Naperville has torn down many of the affected homes and businesses, in the former case, and DuPage County, with U.S. Department of Transportation funding, tore down many of the affected homes in the latter case.

History

File:DuPage River Naperville.jpg

The West Branch of the DuPage River in Naperville.

The first written history to address the name, the 1882 History of DuPage County, Illinois, relates that: Template:Quote

On the 1825 Henry S. Tanner map of Illinois and Missouri, Du Page River is listed as the "Du Page or Saukeyuck River".

See also

• List of rivers of Illinois

External links

• DuPage River Coalition, from The Conservation Foundation
• Flood-inundation Maps for the Dupage River from Plainfield to Shorewood, Illinois United States Geological Survey
• West Branch Watershed Map
• East Branch Watershed Map