The Mississippi River

I had a (brainfart) thought recently and I've always wanted to know why the state of Mississippi got their name attached to the longest river in America when the river neither originates nor ends in their state.  You would think that if you are going to grace your name upon the longest river in US and it doesn't start or empty into the Gulf of Mexico in your state, then you would at least expect that that state has the longest stretch of the river in it.  Nope, that would be Illinois.  Okay, then maybe it's because that the most famous story ever written that occurred on the Mississippi was set in your state.  That would be a no again, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was set in Missouri.  So, why in the hell did Mississippi get to name the mighty river after itself?  It turns out that the Indians named the river well before any of our thieving forefathers showed up and they had already named the river "Misi-ziibi" which meant "Great River" and the state of Mississippi just named their state after the river and not the other way around.  What a disappointment.

As I was researching this, I found out that river systems are generally named after either the longest river emptying into the system or the river with the largest volume that flows into it.  As it happens, the Mississippi is neither.  The Missouri River is the longest and the Ohio River has the largest volume, but because the Mississippi splits the country in half (or at least at that time, it did), they decided to name the river system after it.  What a sham.  Well, that's all I've got for today, so enjoy the picture below after learning a little history today.

"What does this have to do with the Mississippi River?  Who cares."