Humboldt River
| Humboldt River | |
 The Humboldt River, flowing through Carlin Canyon.
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| Name origin: Alexander von Humboldt | |
| Country | United States |
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| State | Nevada |
| Source | Humboldt Wells |
| - location | East Humboldt Range, Elko County, Nevada |
| - elevation | 5,620 ft (1,713 m) |
| - coordinates | 41°7′13″N 114°58′5″W / 41.12028°N 114.96806°W |
| Mouth | Humboldt Sink |
| - elevation | 3,894 ft (1,187 m) |
| - coordinates | 39°59′17″N 118°36′4″W / 39.98806°N 118.60111°WCoordinates: 39°59′17″N 118°36′4″W / 39.98806°N 118.60111°W |
| Length | 290 mi (467 km) |
| Basin | 16,600 sq mi (42,994 km2) |
| Discharge | |
| - average | 390 cu ft/s (11 m3/s) |
| - max | 17,000 cu ft/s (481 m3/s) |
| - min | 0 cu ft/s (0 m3/s) |
 Map of the Humboldt River watershed
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| Reference no. | 22 |
The Humboldt River runs through northern Nevada in the western United States. At approximately 290 miles (470 km) long it is the third longest river in the Great Basin, after the Bear and Sevier Rivers. It has no outlet to the ocean, but instead empties into the Humboldt Sink. It is the fifth largest river in the United States, in terms of discharge, that does not ultimately reach the ocean, while it is the largest in terms of area drained. Through its tributaries the river drains most of sparsely populated northern Nevada, traversing the state roughly east to west, and passing through repeated gaps in the north-south running mountain ranges. It furnishes the only natural transportation artery across the Great Basin and has provided a route for historic westward migrations and subsequent railroads and highways. The river is named for the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt.
The region of the river in northern Nevada was sparsely inhabited by Numic-speaking people at the time of the arrival of European American settlers. The region was little known by non-indigenous peoples until the arrival of fur trappers in the middle 19th century.
The first recorded sighting of the river was on November 9, 1828, by Peter Skene Ogden of the Hudson's Bay Company, during his fifth expedition to the Snake Country. Odgen came southward along the Little Humboldt, encountering the main river at the confluence near Winnemucca. Ogden explored the river for several hundred miles, blazing a trail along it and making the first known map of the region. He initially named the river "Unknown River", due to the source and course of the river still being unknown to him, and later "Paul's River", after one of his trappers who died on the expedition and was buried on the river bank. He later changed it again to "Mary's River," named after the Native American wife of one of his trappers, which later somehow became "St. Mary's River". However in 1829 he suggested that "Swampy River" best described the course he had traversed. In 1833 the Bonneville-Walker fur party explored the river, naming it "Barren River". Washington Irving's 1837 book describing the Bonneville expedition called it "Ogden's River", the name used by many early travelers. By the early 1840s the trail along the river was being used by settlers going west to California.
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Wikipedia