Tombigbee River
The lock with the dam in Coffeeville, Alabama is the last lock on the path of the river to its mouth.
The lock and weir at Demopolis is located about 6 km below the confluence of the Black Warrior River.
During a flood in March 1955, the bridge collapsed over the flood relief (Big Nichols Creek ) and the Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway in Aberdeen, via the Mississippi Highway 25/US Highway 45 lead.
With the Alabama River to form the short Mobile River before it empties into Mobile Bay of the Gulf of Mexico. The catchment area of the river covers a large part of the rural coastal plain in western Alabama and northeastern Mississippi. The river flows generally in a southerly direction and forms one of the main routes for freight transport in the southern states. Rushing through the river is navigable throughout its length, and the upper reaches is connected by the Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway, with the Tennessee River.
Description
The origin of the river is located in the northeast of the state of Mississippi in Itawamba County. Historically, the origin, however, was in the north of Monroe County at the point where Town Creek ( which was then known as the West Fork Tombigbee River) and East Fork Tombigbee River flow together. This is now done as part of the Tombigbee River.
The river flows to the south, flows through the Lake Aberdeen in Aberdeen and north of Columbus receives the Buttahatchee River before the Columbus Lake and flows in Columbus at the state border with Alabama through the Aliceville Lake. In Alabama, the river follows a meandering strong south- south-east direction through the western part of the state. After the confluence of the Sipsey River, about 15 km north of Gainesville, he passed the town where discharges from the west of the Noxubee River and leads to Demopolis where he northeast of the Black Warrior River flows. It passes the Choctaw National Wildlife Refuge, about 30 km northwest of Jackson. It flows past the town, and finally united on the border between Mobile County and Baldwin County, about 50 km north of Mobile from the north to the Alabama River to the Mobile River.
After the completion of the Tennessee - Tombigbee Waterway in 1985, much of the water was diverted along the middle reaches in the straightened channel. Above the Aberdeen Lake of the waterway along the original river course.
History
The headwaters of the river lies in the area where the Chickasaw had their home before they were expelled in 1838 from the region. Jean -Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville in 1736 followed its course during the run of his Chickasaw campaign.
In March 1955, died in a flood to the collapse of a bridge, the Mississippi Highway 25/US Highway 45 crosses the river.
On April 28, 1979, there was an incident in which was pressed at high water level of the tractor Cahaba near Demopolis, Alabama at a drawbridge, which had not been opened. The strong current was sufficient to bring the tractor to capsize and press under the bridge. The incident went off lightly because with only slight damage straightened the ship on the other side of himself.
Dams and sluices
The navigation on the Tombigbee River is guided by five sluices. These are from north to south:
- John C. Stennis Lock & Dam on the Flußmeile 334.7
- Tom Bevill Lock & Dam on the Flußmeile 306.8
- Howell Heflin Lock & Dam on the Flußmeile 266.1
- Demopolis Lock & Dam on the Flußmeile 213.2
- Coffeeville Lock & Dam on the Flußmeile 116.6.
The counting of the Flußmeilen begins at the mouth of the Mobile River in Mobile Bay.