Elk River (Minnesota)
river in east-central Minnesota in the United States
The Elk River is an 84.0-mile-long (135.2 km) river in east-central Minnesota in the United States. It is a tributary of the Mississippi River, draining a watershed of 630 square miles (1,600 km2).
Course
The Elk River rises in northern Benton County, Minnesota and initially flows generally southward. In Sherburne County the river turns southeastward, paralleling the Mississippi River for the remainder of its course, past the communities of Becker and Big Lake. In his 1843 map of the Upper Mississippi, Joseph Nicollet recorded this river as "Kabitawi R[iver]", reflecting Gaa-biitawi-ziibi ("the parallelling river") in the Ojibwe) due to this parallel course with the Mississippi. It joins the Mississippi at the city of Elk River, after passing through Orono Lake, which is formed by a municipal hydroelectric dam.
At Big Lake, the river measures approximately 285 cubic feet per second.
Tributaries
In Sherburne County's Big Lake Township, the Elk collects the St. Francis River and the Snake River; the latter is a minor stream which flows for its entire length in Sherburne County, generally southward through Santiago, Becker and Big Lake Townships in a straightened and channelized course.
“Elk River (Minnesota)” enters the record as river in east-central Minnesota in the United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what River, Minnesota and river can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Elk River (Minnesota)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, River, Minnesota and river provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1331422. Authority coordinates are 45.298, -93.573. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1843.
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This entry incorporates text from “Elk River (Minnesota)” 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.