DuPage River
The DuPage River is a tributary of the Des Plaines River in the U.S. state of Illinois. Course. The river begins as two individual streams. The West Branch of the DuPage River, long, starts at Campanelli Park in Schaumburg within Cook County and continues southward through the entire county of DuPage, including the towns of Bartlett, Wheaton, Warrenville, Winfield and Naperville (including through its riverwalk). The East Branch of the DuPage River, long, begins in Bloomingdale and flows southward through Glendale Heights, Glen Ellyn, Lisle, Woodridge, parts of Naperville and parts of Bolingbrook. St. Joseph Creek, a tributary  of the river's East Branch, runs through the small town of Belmont. The two branches meet at a spot between Naperville and Bolingbrook. The combined DuPage River continues southward from that point, through Plainfield & Shorewood and then west of Joliet. Farther downstream, at Channahon, a dam on the river was originally constructed to raise the DuPage River water level to feed the Illinois and Michigan Canal. From Channahon, the river finally meets the Des Plaines River. Flooding. Like many local bodies of water, both branches of the DuPage River seriously overflowed after the "Flood of 1996", when approximately of  rain fell on the area within a 24-hour period, on July 17–18 of that year. Other flooding was also very common, along Washington Street in Naperville and Illinois Route 53 in Glen Ellyn, because those roads are close to their respective branches of the river, and along the river in Plainfield. The City of Naperville has torn down many of the affected homes and businesses, in the former case, and DuPage County, with U.S. Department of Transportation funding, tore down many of the affected homes in the latter case. History. The first written history to address the name, the  1882 "History of DuPage County, Illinois", relates that: On the 1825 Henry S. Tanner map of Illinois and Missouri, Du Page River is listed as the "Du Page or Saukeyuck River".