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Pedernales River

Field	Value
name	Pedernales River
image	Pedernales1.jpg
image_caption	The Pedernales River in Pedernales Falls State Park
map
map_caption	Location of Pedernales River, Texas
subdivision_type1	Country
subdivision_name1	United States
subdivision_type2	State
subdivision_name2	Texas
subdivision_type3	Region
subdivision_name3	Edwards Plateau, Texas Hill Country
length	170 km
discharge1_avg	2.3 m3/s
source1	Kerr County, Texas
source1_coordinates
source1_elevation	690 m
mouth	Lake Travis, Travis County, Texas
mouth_coordinates
mouth_elevation	197 m
basin_size	3297 km2

The Pedernales River ( ) is a tributary of the Colorado River, approximately 106 mi long, in Central Texas in the United States. It drains an area of the Edwards Plateau, flowing west to east across the Texas Hill Country west of Austin. The name "Pedernales", first used in the middle 18th century, comes from a Spanish word for the flint rocks characteristic of the riverbed.

Description

The river rises from springs in northeastern Kerr County, approximately 25 mi southeast of Junction. It flows north into southeast Kimble County and then east into Gillespie County, passing south of Fredericksburg, and into Blanco County, passing north of Johnson City. It joins the Colorado from the southwest in Lake Travis, approximately 10 mi west of Austin.

The river has a close association with the Texas Hill Country, tied to the history of the region and emblematic of its geography. Along its route it flows over numerous rugged limestone escarpments as it winds eastward, passing along the south side of the ranch of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who grew up in nearby Stonewall, south of the river.

In 1750, Fray Benito Fernández de Santa Ana proposed a plan to the Spanish government that a mission be established among the Lipan Apache who lived along the river. In 1789, the river was the site of a skirmish between Colonel Francisco Xavier Ugalde and a group of Lipan and Mescalero Indians. The first permanent white settlement along the river was in 1846, when the town of Fredericksburg was established by German immigrants. The threat of raids from Apaches restricted settlement in the area until the 1880s.

Pedernales Falls State Park is located along the river in Blanco County east of Johnson City. Like many rivers in central Texas, it is prone to variable water levels. A sign at the state park shows a relatively tranquil river in one picture and a raging wall of muddy water in the next picture, said to be taken only five minutes after the first. The speed at which flash floods can arise along this river has resulted in several deaths at the park, and warning sirens have been installed in the park and elsewhere along the river. The lower river is a popular destination for whitewater rafting during the high-water season.

References

{{cite gnis. 1377778. Pedernales River. 2019-08-12
''Harper West, TX'' 7.5 Minute Topographic Quadrangle, USGS, 1974 (1978 rev.)
"Archived copy".

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

rivers-of-texas tributaries-of-the-colorado-river-(texas) rivers-of-kimble-county,-texas rivers-of-gillespie-county,-texas rivers-of-blanco-county,-texas rivers-of-travis-county,-texas texas-hill-country

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