South Fork Kentucky River is a river in Kentucky in the United States. It is a fork of the Kentucky River that it joins just downstream of Beattyville. It was not originally named South Fork. Two of its three major tributaries are the forks at its head, the Red Bird River and Goose Creek, whose confluence is at Oneida. Before the 19th century, Goose Creek also incorporated what is today known as South Fork Kentucky River.

Navigability

Several largely ineffective attempts were made in the 19th century to make South Fork navigable all of the way upstream to the Goose Creek Salt Works. An Act of the legislature on 1811-01-10 enabled a lottery to raise US$10000 towards making this reach of the river navigable, and several times the scheme was allowed more time, but by 1813 still nothing had come of it. Between 1837 and 1845 US$3022 was spent clearing obstructions from this reach. One of the biggest impediments was an area known as The Narrows, a 1.2 mile reach of the river 4.5 mile downstream of the Goose Creek/Red Bird fork where it descended by 12.5 ft.

Basin and hydrology

A survey of the reach between the Salt Works and the Soft Fork mouth was performed in 1836–1837. It recorded the entire length as 68.5 mile descending 206.7 ft in total, with the South Fork portion being 42 mile and 131.5 ft of that. It recorded the width as varying between 150 and 200 ft.

Floods

The Kentucky River basin, including South Fork and its tributaries, suffered a major flood in January and February 1957, although that did not exceed the highest on record for South Fork specifically, as Goose Creek's record at that point had been the flood of June and July 1947. Peak water levels at Manchester were 2 ft lower than those of the 1947 flood. However at Booneville the peak levels were 1.7 ft higher than those of 1947. 25 homes and 34 commercial buildings were flooded in Manchester; with an estimate cost of the damage exceeding US$200000. 20 homes and 10 other buildings were flooded in Oneida, with approximately 80% of the town under water, in some places by as much as 9 ft. 31 homes and 1 other building were flooded in Booneville.

Tributaries and other locations

General

A road connects a left branch of Crane Creek via a gap to the Wildcat Branch of Goose Creek. A road connects a left branch of Upper Teges Creek to Crane Creek.

Cross-reference

Sources