How crooked is the River Raisin, really?

River Raisin: Photo credit, City of Monroe

by Claire Pajka

Throughout time, many rivers have attempted to claim the title, “Crookedest River in the United States,” though verifying these claims has proven a challenge, and the winner has yet to be crowned.

A few of the rivers who have staked their claim in literature or tourism include the local River Raisin, the Kickapoo River, the Mississippi River, and the Cuyahoga River. The Cuyahoga boasts of its crookedness in its name, as the very word “Cuyahoga” is either derived from the Mohawk term for “crooked river” or the Seneca word meaning “jawbone river” for its arching, U-shaped bend.

Similarly, the name “Kickapoo” in Algonquin means “one who goes here, then there,” describing the abundance of doubling-back portions of the 160-mile river that ultimately only travels 60 miles from its source to its mouth.

But how does one measure the crookedness of a river numerically? In order to compare these rivers, I wanted to create ratios displaying how crooked or meandering the water was in comparison to the direct distance – a straight line from source to mouth – that the river runs.

Dividing the length of the flowing river by the length of the river as the crow flies creates a system where a higher ratio correlates to a more meandering and crooked river. These initial ratios placed the River Raisin as the second crookedest river in the United States, next only to the Cuyahoga River in northeast Ohio.

1. Cuyahoga River: 89.4 miles of water, 30 miles as the crow flies, ratio: 2.98
2. River Raisin: 139 miles of water, 49 miles as the crow flies, ratio: 2.837
3. Kickapoo River: 160 miles of water, 60 miles as the crow flies, ratio: 2.667
4. Bourbeuse River: 107.6 miles of water, 53 miles as the crow flies, ratio: 2.030
5. Mississippi River: 2,348 miles of water, 1288.5 miles as the crow flies, ratio: 1.822

However, this list may change depending on how you define the word “crooked” and if you believe switchbacks and meanderings define crookedness. For example, these ratios alone don’t take into account the U-shaped nature of some rivers – like the Cuyahoga – that contain one long curve and would not be considered “meanderingly crooked.” One method I used in an attempt to rectify this, though quickly deemed infeasible, was counting the average number of curves per mile shown on a map for each river, and using these numbers as multipliers for each ratio. This would mean that the new ratios would be higher for rivers with more meanders, and leave U- shaped rivers with a smaller ratio in the end, ultimately answering the question of which river
can be considered the most meanderingly crooked.

Due to the infeasibility of counting every turn in each of the aforementioned rivers, I removed rivers that had high ratios due to less than three large curves and not many meandering curves or switchbacks (the number three being an arbitrary number of large curves for calculation purposes). I was left with the final list below, in which I’ve concluded that the River Raisin may, in fact, be the most meanderingly crooked river in the United States!

1. River Raisin: 139 miles of water, 49 miles as the crow flies, ratio: 2.837
2. Kickapoo River: 160 miles of water, 60 miles as the crow flies, ratio: 2.667
3. Bourbeuse River: 107.6 miles of water, 53 miles as the crow flies, ratio: 2.030
4. Mississippi River: 2,348 miles of water, 1288.5 miles as the crow flies, ratio: 1.822

The River Raisin is a great place to get out on the water and enjoy nature, so the next time you go for a paddle, be sure to congratulate this local river on being one of the most “meanderingly crooked” in the United States.

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by Marsha Chartrand

Marsha Johnson Chartrand, a founder, writer, and copy editor with the Manchester Mirror, is a 50-year resident of Manchester. She has a long history of volunteer and community involvement.