Pecos River

• The river originates in New Mexico and is nine hundred miles long.

• The Fly Fishing Connection says the Pecos is good for Brown Trouts and Rio Grande Cutthroats.

• Seven miles of the Pecos have received a National Wild River designation.

• Pecos is pronounced “Pay-cuss.”

• The Handbook of Texas Online says, “According to Adolph F. Bandelier, the name Pecos first appears in Juan de Oñate’s reports concerning the Indian pueblo of Cicuye, now known as the Pecos Pueblo.”

• The river has a salty taste.

• Pecos Bill was created by Edward O’Reilly for The Century Magazine in the early nineteenth century.

• Patrick Swayze played Pecos Bill in the 1995 Disney movie, Tall Tale.

Devils River

• The river originates in Texas and is 94 miles long.

• The river empties into the Amistad National Recreation Area.

• The Devils is home to the fifteen-foot-tall Dolan Falls.

• The Handbook of Texas Online says, “Later travelers and settlers called the river San Pedro. In the 1840’s Texas Ranger captain John Coffee (Jack) Hays asked the name of the river as he stood before one of its deep canyons. Upon hearing its name, he reportedly replied that it looked more like the Devil’s river than Saint Peter’s.”

• Much of the land around the Devils is private property, so people can be arrested for trespassing if they step out of the river.

• The Nature Conservancy owns about 25 miles of the river.

• A sinkhole in the river provides a home to more than one million Mexican free-tailed bats.

Brazos River

• The river is entirely in Texas (the drainage basin extends into New Mexico) and is 840 miles long.

• The Brazos is dammed in three places: Possum Kingdom Lake, Lake Granbury, and Lake Whitney. (Waco also has a little dam to make Lake Brazos in town.)

• John Graves wrote about the building of the Granbury dam in Goodbye to a River.

• At one time nearly ever prison in Texas was on the Brazos River.

• Two Mexican ships defeated the Texas ship Independence on the Brazos during the Texas War of Independence.

• The Brazos has been featured in a plethora of songs.

Frio River

• The river originates in Texas and is approximately 250 miles long (only about 31 of them are usable for recreation).

• The Frio begins in Real County and runs through Uvalde, Medina, Frio, La Salle, and Live Oak counties.

• The water is shallow, and there are rapids.

• Frio means “cold” in Spanish.

• The Frio is the site of the Satanic ritual in the 1975 film Race With the Devil, starring Peter Fonda.

Neches River

• The river originates in Texas and is 416 miles long.

• The Neches is wild and free-flowing, but there are occasional log jams.

• There is one small waterfall after the B.A. Steinhagen Reservoir.

• The river is said to have gotten its name from the Spanish explorer Alonso De León, who named it after the Neches Indians in the late 1680’s.

• The Big Slough is an eight-mile loop good for canoeing.

• People have lived along the river since the 12,000-year-old Clovis Indians.

Colorado River

• The river originates in Texas and is approximately six hundred miles long.

• The river is not considered navigable by most paddlers.

• “Colorado” is a Spanish word for red. It’s likely that this name was originally applied to the Brazos, but the rivers were confused by Spanish settlers.

• The Colorado is longest river with both its source and mouth in Texas.

• The river was used as a route inland by the early colonists.

• The Colorado is used by the South Texas Project to cool its nuclear reactors.