Shoshone River

Shoshone River
South Fork Shoshone River in Park County, Wyoming, 1923.
Map of the Bighorn River basin including the Shoshone River
Native name	Aashilitshia (Shoshoni) Aashbikkaashée (Shoshoni)[1]
Location
Country	United States
State	Wyoming
Cities	Cody, Wyoming, Powell, Wyoming, Lovell, Wyoming
Physical characteristics
Source
• location	Absaroka Range, Wyoming
• coordinates	44°30′04″N 109°11′02″W / 44.50111°N 109.18389°W / 44.50111; -109.18389[2]
Mouth	Big Horn River
• location	Lovell, Wyoming
• coordinates	44°51′44″N 108°12′17″W / 44.86222°N 108.20472°W / 44.86222; -108.20472[2]
Length	100 mi (160 km)
Basin size	2,989 sq mi (7,740 km2)
Discharge
• location	below Buffalo Bill Dam
• average	1,037 cu ft/s (29.4 m3/s)
• minimum	59 cu ft/s (1.7 m3/s)
• maximum	17,300 cu ft/s (490 m3/s)

The Shoshone River is a 100-mile (160 km) long river in northern Wyoming in the United States. Its headwaters are in the Absaroka Range in Shoshone National Forest. It ends when it runs into the Big Horn River near Lovell, Wyoming. Cities it runs near or through are Cody, Powell, Byron, and Lovell. Near Cody, it runs through a volcanically active region of fumaroles known as Colter's Hell.^[3] This contributed to the river being named on old maps of Wyoming as the Stinking Water River.

The current name was established in 1901 due to popular demand.^[2]

West of Cody the river is impounded in Shoshone Canyon by the Buffalo Bill Dam, created as part of the Shoshone project; one of the nation's first water conservation projects. A number of hot springs along the Shoshone were drowned by the reservoir.^[3] Upstream of Buffalo Bill Reservoir the Shoshone splits into the North Fork, which follows a long canyon down from the Absaroka Mountains to the vicinity of the east entrance of Yellowstone National Park, and the South Fork, which originates at the southern end of the Absarokas.