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All the United States Illinois Waukegan Dead River

Dead River

A river with some unusual, and occasionally dangerous, habits.

Waukegan, Illinois

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Matt Bergstrom
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Water leaks from the Dead River into Lake Michigan   ahlevin / Atlas Obscura User
Placid river biding its time.  
Warning sign to adventurous hikers.  
This was the old sign on the north side of the river in 2015. All of this has been renovated.   vbcuda / Atlas Obscura User
January 2019   vbcuda / Atlas Obscura User
Dead River crests over the sand bar into the Lake   ahlevin / Atlas Obscura User
  vbcuda / Atlas Obscura User
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About

Dead River is so named not because it is polluted, but because it runs toward, but does not flow into, Lake Michigan.

Just yards from its goal, the river disappears into the sand in an apparent dead end. Periodically, the water builds enough pressure to burst its sand bar barricades in a violent outbreak, which can be very dangerous to bystanders. Mostly, however, the river snakes placidly from the marshes of Dead Lake a mile or two to the dead end on the beach, hardly seeming to flow at all.

In pre-settlement times, several rivers in the Chicagoland region experienced the same conditions, where the force of the waves pushing sand onto the beach was stronger than the river flow downstream, since there is very little river gradient in this flat area. Nowadays the Chicago and Calumet Rivers have been dredged and industrialized beyond recognition, while the Dead River alone carries on this peculiar habit.

Related Tags

Water Geological Oddities Rivers Geology

Know Before You Go

Follow hiking trail in Illinois Beach State park south along the river to its mouth. http://w3w.co/birthmark.debating.grabs

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MattB

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m095676, vbcuda, ahlevin

  • m095676
  • vbcuda
  • ahlevin

Published

March 17, 2010

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Dead River
Waukegan, Illinois, 60087
United States
42.408819, -87.803421
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