Red River (Kentucky River tributary)
river in Kentucky, United States
The Red River is a 97.2-mile-long (156.4 km) tributary of the Kentucky River in east-central Kentucky in the United States. Via the Kentucky and Ohio rivers, it is part of the Mississippi River watershed.
It rises in the mountainous region of the Cumberland Plateau, in eastern Wolfe County, approximately 15 miles (24 km) east of Campton. It flows generally west, through Red River Gorge in the Daniel Boone National Forest, then past Stanton and Clay City. It joins the Kentucky approximately 11 miles (18 km) southeast of Winchester.
In 1993, a 20-mile (32 km) stretch of the river in the Red River Gorge was designated by the federal government as a National Wild and Scenic River.
The book The Unforeseen Wilderness by Wendell Berry was written to deter the Army Corps of Engineers from damming the Red River Gorge in 1971.
Recreation
The largest golden redhorse ever taken in Kentucky (4 lbs., 5 oz.) was taken in the Red River.
“Red River (Kentucky River tributary)” enters the record as river in Kentucky, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what River, Kentucky and tributary can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Red River (Kentucky River tributary)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, River, Kentucky and tributary provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1221718. Authority coordinates are 37.671, -83.251. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1993 and 1971.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Red River (Kentucky River tributary)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.