Driver, Take the Bridge Over the D River

We’ve talked before about very short town names, but there’s also a very short river name.

In Oregon, there’s a river that’s simply called D. The letter D. The letter D. And the D River is just 440 feet long. It used to hold the world record for the shortest river on Earth, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. But then that was contested by people backing the Rowe River in Montana.

The D is 440 feet and the Rowe supposedly is 201 feet. But there was some controversy over how you measure the distance of those rivers. And so now the Guinness Book of World Records does not list the shortest river in the world.

But the D, is there a story there about why it’s just called the D? I think it was part of a naming contest. Oh, I see. And somebody suggested that name. I think it’s near Devil’s Lake. So somebody just shortened it to D.

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