Sauk River (Minnesota)

The Sauk River as it passes through St. Cloud, Minnesota

45°35′30″N 94°10′36″W / 45.59167°N 94.17667°W / 45.59167; -94.17667

The Sauk River is a 122-mile-long (196 km)[1] tributary of the Mississippi River in central Minnesota in the United States. It drains small lakes in Stearns County. In the Ojibwe language it is called Ozaagi-ziibi, meaning "River of the Sauks".[2][3]

It issues from Lake Osakis on the Todd County / Stearns County line. During times of low water in Lake Osakis, water can be diverted into the lake across the divide from the Long Prairie River, joining the watershed of the Sauk River with that of the Crow Wing River.[4] The Sauk River then flows east through Guernsey Lake, Little Sauk Lake and Juergens Lake, then south through Sauk Lake and past the city of Sauk Centre. The river continues southeast past Melrose and Richmond, then northeast through Cedar Island Lake and Zumwalde Lake, past Cold Spring and Waite Park, and discharges in to the Mississippi River 2 miles (3 km) north of St. Cloud.

At St. Cloud, MN, the river has a mean annual discharge of 342 cubic feet per second.[5]

The rapids that occur south of the river's mouth on the Mississippi River lent their name to the nearby city of Sauk Rapids.

  1. ^ U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map, accessed November 29, 2012
  2. ^ Upham, Warren (1920). Minnesota Geographic Names: Their Origin and Historic Significance. Minnesota Historical Society. p. 547.
  3. ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Sauk River
  4. ^ "Long Prairie River Diversion – Long Prairie MN". Living New Deal. Retrieved 2024-08-23.
  5. ^ "USGS Surface Water data for Minnesota: USGS Surface-Water Annual Statistics".