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Where do Fort Wayne’s rivers begin and where do they go?

03/13/2017  |  BY cancelprint_rfw

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Many people think rivers flow from north to south, but Fort Wayne’s rivers are great examples of rivers that don’t flow in the direction you think they might.

Fort Wayne sits on what is known as the St. Lawrence continental divide that separates the Great Lakes Basin from the Gulf of Mexico watershed. Although the land around Fort Wayne is fairly flat, the city is actually on a small ridge that resulted from receding glaciers that covered the area in the Ice Age.

The St. Joseph River begins in Hillsdale County, Michigan. It flows southeast into Ohio where it turns and flows southwest to Fort Wayne.

The St. Marys River begins near Celina, Ohio. It flows northwest into Fort Wayne where it meets the St. Joseph River near Headwaters Park. The two rivers combine to form the Maumee River. It flows in a northeasterly direction and ends at Toledo where it dumps into Lake Erie. The Maumee River is the largest tributary to the Great Lakes. So some of Fort Wayne’s rivers flow generally to the north and east and others flow to the south and west.