Name: Popo Agie River

 

County: Fremont

 

Authority Name: Popo Agie River (Wyo.)

 

GNIS Entry

 

Longitude:  1082924W

Latitude: 425715N

 

Legal Description:

 

Elevation: 5003/1525

(ft/m)

 

Feature Type: Stream

 

Origin of Name:

When white men first came into the country, they found the three Popo Agie Rivers already named the Popo Agie, which is the main stream, the North branch of that river, and the Little Popo Agie, which is the south branch. Popo Agie is a Crow name, and like all Indian names has a direct and practical meaning. Popo signifies head, and Agie, water; therefore, these streams are so named because they get their water directly from the fountain head, the mountains. They are very beautiful mountain torrents and were highly prized by the Crows in their day in that country.

Source: WPA

 

River, Fremont County, Wyo., formed by the junction of North and Middle Popo Agie Rivers ... and flowing easterly to unite with Winder River near the Wind River base line in R. 4 E., Wind River meridian, to form Big Horn River.

Source: Decisions, 1890-1932 

 

'The main upper reach of the Bighorn itself is so called above the confluence of Popo-agie river. Wind river runs S. E. to this confluence, whence the course of the Bighorn is almost N. to the Yellowstone. Larpenteur retraversed South Pass and thus got on the Sweetwater, but did not go far down the latter before turning away from it—certainly nowhere near "Rock Independent," as he says by mistake in a passage above which I have stricken out, as nothing of the sort is indicated by the Orig. Journ. " Wind River " occurs in Irving's Astoria, orig. ed. 1836, but the name is much older. The stream was first ascended by the outgoing overland Astorians under Wilson Price Hunt, Sept. 9-14, 1811 ; and appears to have soon become known by its present name, though this does not occur in any Lewis and Clark text, orig. ed. 1814. The Bighorn was of course so named from the mountain sheep, Ovis montana; an Indian name of this animal is rendered ahsahta by Irving, and Arsata appears as an alternative name of the river on Lewis' earliest map. In one place in chap, xxiv "Big Horse" runs through all the eds. of Astoria by misprint. In David Thompson's MS. I found the name "River of Large Corn," evidently mistranslating the French Grosse Corne (big horn). Pappah-ahje of the above text is one of many variants of the Crow Indian name now usually rendered Popo-agie, meaning Reed river. Bonneville spells it Popo-azze-ah. In his Bonneville Irving mistakenly translates it "Head" river. On consulting Dr. Matthews in this case, I am favored 'with the following: " Popo-Agie is a Crow name. As you know, Crow and Hidatsa are closely allied tongues, and as you know also, the sounds of o and u are easily interchanged in any language, English included. Now look at my Hidatsa Dictionary for the words pupu and dzi (ahzhee), and put them together; then look at the word for head (a/u) and see if you can make "Head River" out of this name. Pupu is, I believe, the common reed, Phragmites communis.'

Source: Coues in Larpenteur

 

Other Names: Wan-ze-gara, Popo-azze-ah

 

Alternative Spellings: Popo-Agie 

 

History:

 

 

Stories:

 

 

Maps:

1:24000 Quadrangle: Arapahoe

 

 

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