The Jordan River is a river in the U.S. state of Utah. Regulated by pumps at its headwaters at Utah Lake, it flows northward through the Salt Lake Valley and empties into the Great Salt Lake. Four of Utah's six largest cities border the river: Salt Lake City, West Valley City, West Jordan, and Sandy. More than a million people live in the Jordan Subbasin, part of the Jordan River watershed that lies within Salt Lake and Utah counties. During the Pleistocene, the area was part of Lake Bonneville.
Members of the Desert Archaic Culture were the earliest known inhabitants of the region; an archaeological site found along the river dates back 3,000 years. Mormon pioneers led by Brigham Young were the first European American settlers, arriving in July 1847 and establishing farms and settlements along the river and its tributaries. The growing population, needing water for drinking, irrigation, and industrial use in an arid climate, dug ditches and canals, built dams, and installed pumps to create a highly regulated river.
Although the Jordan was originally a cold-water fishery with 13 native species, including Bonneville cutthroat trout, it has become a warm-water fishery where the common carp is most abundant. It was heavily polluted for many years by raw sewage, agricultural runoff, and mining wastes. In the 1960s, sewage treatment removed many pollutants. In the 21st century, pollution is further limited by the Clean Water Act, and, in some cases, the Superfund program. Once the home of bighorn sheep and beaver, the contemporary river is frequented by raccoons, red foxes, and domestic pets. It is an important avian resource, as are the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake, visited by more than 200 bird species.
Big Cottonwood, Little Cottonwood, Red Butte, Mill, Parley's, and City creeks, as well as smaller streams like Willow Creek at Draper, Utah, flow through the sub-basin. The Jordan River Parkway along the river includes natural areas, botanical gardens, golf courses, and a bicycle and pedestrian trail, completed in 2017.Completion of the Jordan River Parkway, Jordan River Commission
Course The Jordan River is Utah Lake's only outflow. It originates at the northern end of the lake between the cities of Lehi and Saratoga Springs. It then meanders north through the north end of Utah Valley for approximately until it passes through a gorge in the Traverse Mountains, known as the Jordan Narrows. The Utah National Guard base at Camp Williams lies on the western side of the river through much of the Jordan Narrows. The Turner Dam, located from the river's mouth (or at river mile 41.8) and within the boundaries of the Jordan Narrows, is the first of two dams of the Jordan River. Turner Dam diverts the water to the right or easterly into the East Jordan Canal and to the left or westerly toward the Utah and Salt Lake Canal. Two pumping stations situated next to Turner Dam divert water to the west into the Provo Reservoir Canal, Utah Lake Distribution Canal, and Jacob-Welby Canal. The Provo Reservoir Canal runs north through Salt Lake County, Jacob-Welby runs south through Utah County. The Utah Lake Distribution Canal runs both north and south, eventually leading back into Utah Lake. Outside the narrows, the river reaches the second dam, known as Joint Dam, which is from the river's mouth. Joint Dam diverts water to the east for the Jordan and Salt Lake City Canal and to the west for the South Jordan Canal.
The river then flows through the middle of the Salt Lake Valley, initially moving through the city of Bluffdale and then forming the border between the cities of Riverton and Draper. The river then enters the city of South Jordan where it merges with Midas Creek from the west. Upon leaving South Jordan, the river forms the border between the cities of West Jordan on the west and Sandy and Midvale on the east. From the west, Bingham Creek enters West Jordan. Dry Creek, an eastern tributary, combines with the main river in Sandy. The river then forms the border between the cities of Taylorsville and West Valley City on the west and Murray and South Salt Lake on the east. The river flows underneath Interstate 215 in Murray. Little and Big Cottonwood Creeks enter from the east in Murray, and from the mouth respectively. Mill Creek enters on the east in South Salt Lake, from the mouth. The river runs through the middle of Salt Lake City, where the river travels underneath Interstate 80 a mile west of downtown Salt Lake City and again underneath Interstate 215 in the northern portion of Salt Lake City. Interstate 15 parallels the river's eastern flank throughout Salt Lake County. At from the mouth, the river enters the Surplus Canal channel. The Jordan River physically diverts from the Surplus Canal through four gates and heads north with the Surplus Canal heading northwest. Parley's, Emigration, and Red Butte Creeks converge from the east through an underground pipe, from the mouth. City Creek also enters via an underground pipe, from the river's mouth. The length of the river and the elevation of its mouth varies year to year depending on the fluctuations of the Great Salt Lake caused by weather conditions. The lake has an average elevation of which can deviate by . The Jordan River then continues for with Salt Lake County on the west and North Salt Lake and Davis County on the east until it empties into the Great Salt Lake.
Discharge The United States Geological Survey maintains a stream gauge in Salt Lake City that shows annual runoff from the period 1980–2003 is just over per year or 100 percent of the total of water entering the Jordan River from all sources. The Surplus Canal carries almost 60 percent of the water into the Great Salt Lake, with various irrigation canals responsible for the rest. The amount of water entering the Jordan River from Utah Lake is just over per year. Inflow from the 11 largest streams feeding the Jordan River, sewage treatment plants, and groundwater each account for approximately 15 percent of water entering the river.
Watershed
The Jordan Subbasin, as defined by the United States Geological Survey, is located entirely within Salt Lake and Utah counties in a roughly rectangular area of . The Subbasin is part of the larger Jordan River Basin that includes the upper Jordan River, Utah Lake, Provo and Spanish Fork Subbasins. Four of the six largest cities in Utah are in Salt Lake County. The Jordan River flows through Sandy, with a 2010 population of 87,461; West Jordan, population 103,712; West Valley City, population 129,480; and Salt Lake City, population 186,440. Flanked on either side by mountain ranges, the topography of the land varies greatly. The Wasatch Range rises on the east, with a high point of above sea level at Twin Peaks, near the town of Alta. The Oquirrh Mountains rise on the west, with a high point of over above sea level at Farnsworth Peak. The low point of is at the river's mouth, where the river enters the Great Salt Lake. Both the Oquirrh and Wasatch Mountains are fault-block mountains created from normal-slip faults where the mountains rise at the fault and the valley floor drops. The Wasatch Fault runs along the western edge of the Wasatch Mountains, and the Oquirrh Fault runs along the eastern edge of the Oquirrh Mountains.
From approximately 75,000 to 8,000 years ago, much of what is now northern Utah was covered by a Pleistocene lake called Lake Bonneville. At its greatest extent, Lake Bonneville reached an elevation of above sea level and had a surface area of . The lake left behind lacustrine sediments, which resulted in a relatively flat lake bed, and the valley floors have seen today. As the region experienced an increasingly warmer and drier climate over time, Lake Bonneville's water levels receded, leaving the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake as remnants. The river's greatest slope, , is in the Jordan Narrows, while the rest of the river has a more gentle slope of .
Approximately (46 percent of land area) of the Jordan Subbasin is in the Wasatch, Oquirrh and Traverse mountains. The United States Forest Service manages of land in the Wasatch Range. The vast majority of the Oquirrh Range is privately held, with Kennecott Copper Mine owning most of the land. The State of Utah has scattered land holdings of throughout the subbasin and owns the beds of all navigable streams and lakes.
The Jordan Subbasin has two distinct climate zones. The lower elevations are characterized as a cold, semi-arid climate, with four distinct seasons. Both summer and winter are long, with hot, dry summers and cold, snowy winters. Salt Lake City receives of snow annually, part of a total of of precipitation per year. The mean maximum temperature is in July and in January Areas of higher elevation have two distinct seasons, summer and winter. One of the areas of highest elevation, Alta, Utah, receives of snow annually, part of a total of of precipitation per year. The mean maximum temperature is in July and in January.
History The first known inhabitants of the banks of the Jordan River were members of the Desert Archaic Culture, a group of nomadic hunter-gatherers. A 3,000-year-old archaeological site, called the Soo'nkahni Village, was uncovered next to the Jordan River. The next recorded inhabitants, between 400 A.D. to around 1350 A.D., were the Fremont people, composed of several scattered bands of hunters and farmers living in what is now southern Idaho, western Nevada and most of Utah. The disappearance of the Fremont people has been attributed to both changing climatic conditions, which put an end to favorable weather for farming, and to the arrival of ancestors to the present-day Ute, Paiute, and Northwestern Shoshone. Although there were no permanent Native American settlements when European settlers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, the area bordered land occupied by several tribes, such as the Timpanogos band of the Utes in Utah Valley, the Goshutes on the western side of the Oquirrh Mountain Range and the Northwestern Shoshone north of the Salt Lake Valley.
In 1776, Franciscan missionary Silvestre Vélez de Escalante was trying to find a land route from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Monterey, California. His party included twelve Spanish colonials and two Utes from the Utah Valley Timpanogots band who acted as guides. On 23 September 1776, the party entered Utah Valley at the present-day city of Spanish Fork. The local Timanogots villagers hosted them and told them of the lake to the north. In his journal, Escalante described Utah Lake as a "lake, which must be six leagues wide and fifteen leagues long, [and] extends as far as one of these valleys. It runs northwest through a narrow passage, and according to what they told us, it communicates with others much larger." The Great Salt Lake was described as the "other lake with which this one communicates, according to what they told us, [and] covers many leagues, and its waters are noxious and extremely salty."
The next group of Europeans to see the Jordan River was the party of Étienne Provost, a French-Canadian trapper. In October 1824, Provost's party was lured into a Shoshone camp somewhere along the Jordan River, where they were attacked in retaliation for the murder of a local chief. In truth, the murder was committed by a member of Peter Skene Ogden's party. The men were caught off-guard, and fifteen perished, but Provost and two others escaped. The river was historically named Proveau's Fork, as the Quebec-born fur trapper was known as Proveau and Provot, in addition to Provost (and the pronunciation was "Provo").