Concho River
Encyclopedia
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
of Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
. It has three primary feeds: the North
North Concho River
The North Concho River is a river in western-central Texas and one of three tributaries of the Concho River. The river is long. The other two tributaries are the Middle Concho and South Concho Rivers...
, Middle, and South
South Concho River
The South Concho River is one of the few rivers in Texas to run south to north for its entire length. Rising from Anson Springs some four miles south of Christoval, Texas in Tom Green County, it flows north through the town of Christoval, then continues north for 13 miles before it joins the Middle...
Concho rivers. The North Concho River is the longest fork, starting in Howard County and traveling southeast for 88 mi (141.6 km) until merging with the South and Middle forks near Goodfellow Air Force Base
Goodfellow Air Force Base
Goodfellow Air Force Base is a non-flying United States Air Force base located in San Angelo, Texas. As part of Air Education & Training Command , Goodfellow's main mission is cryptologic and intelligence training for the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps. Military firefighters are also...
at San Angelo, Texas
San Angelo, Texas
San Angelo is a city in the state of Texas. Located in West Central Texas it is the county seat of Tom Green County. As of 2010 according to the United States Census Bureau, the city had a total population of 93,200...
. The combined branches of the river flow east about 58 mi (93.3 km) until it eventually empties into the Colorado River
Colorado River (Texas)
The Colorado River is a river that runs through the U.S. state of Texas; it should not be confused with the much longer Colorado River which flows from Colorado into the Gulf of California....
about 12 mi (19.3 km) east of Paint Rock, Texas
Paint Rock, Texas
Paint Rock is a town in and the county seat of Concho County, Texas, United States. The population was 320 at the 2000 census.The town's name comes from Indian pictographs painted on cliffs overlooking the nearby Concho River.These pictographs cover nearly half a mile upstream from the town of...
.
Concho is Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
for "shell"; the river was so named due to its abundance of freshwater mussel
Mussel
The common name mussel is used for members of several families of clams or bivalvia mollusca, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, which are often more or less rounded or oval.The...
s, such as the Tampico Pearlymussel (Cyrtonaias tampicoensis). The Spanish explored the river in the 1650s for the gem-quality purple to pink pearl
Pearl
A pearl is a hard object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusk. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is made up of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other...
s produced by the Tampico Pearlymussel. The mussels were systematically harvested for only a short time because it was soon realized that the yield of pearls was too low for their harvest to be economically viable.