where does the merrimack river start in missouri
Meramec River The Meramec River (/ˈmɛrɪmæk/) is one of the longest free-flowing waterways in Missouri, draining 3,980 square miles (10,300 km2)[1] while wandering 218 miles (351 km)[2] from headwaters near Salem to where it empties into the Mississippi River near St. Louis at Arnold and Oakville. The Meramec watershed covers six Missouri Ozark Highland counties—Dent, Phelps, Crawford, Franklin, Jefferson, and St. Louis—and portions of eight others—Maries, Gasconade, Iron, Washington, Reynolds, St. Francois, Ste. Genevieve, and Texas. Between its source and its mouth, it falls 1,025 feet (312 m). Year-round navigability begins above Maramec Spring, just south of St. James. The Meramec's size increases at the confluence of the Dry Fork, and its navigability continues until the river enters the Mississippi at Arnold, Missouri.
Arkansas River At 1,469 miles (2,364 km), it is the sixth-longest river in the United States,[7] the second-longest tributary in the Mississippi–Missouri system, and the 45th longest river in the world. Its origin is in the Rocky Mountains in Lake County, Colorado, near Leadville. In 1859, placer gold discovered in the Leadville area brought thousands seeking to strike it rich, but the easily recovered placer gold was quickly exhausted.[8] The Arkansas River's mouth is at Napoleon, Arkansas, and its drainage basin covers nearly 170,000 sq mi (440,300 km²).[5] In terms of volume, the river is much smaller than the Missouri and Ohio Rivers, with a mean discharge of roughly 41,000 cubic feet per second (1,200 m3/s).