Detroit is the largest city in Michigan, (French: Détroit, meaning "strait"). Detroit is a major port city on the 32 mile long Detroit River. It was founded in 1701 by the Frenchman Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac. The river name is a reference to the fact that the river connects Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie. However, it is not a strait by definition. The boundary between Canada and the United States of America passes through the river lengthwise. Its elevation is 579 feet (175 m) above sea level.

The Tippecanoe River is a gentle, 225 mile long river in northern Indiana. It is considered the river of lakes, as it is fed by 88 natural lakes. It has a drainage area of 1.25 million acres, spanning 14 counties. The Miami and Shawnee Indians named this river Kithtippecanunk, or "place of the buffalo fish," which still can be found in the Tippecanoe River. The first USS Tippecanoe - a Canonicus class monitor was launched on 22 December 1864.

The Mississinewa River is a tributary of the Wabash River in eastern Indiana and a small portion of western Ohio in the United States. It is about 100 mi long. During the War of 1812, the river was the site of the Battle of the Mississinewa, which pitted United States forces against the Miami Indians.
Near the rivers mouth dam causes the river to form Mississinewa Lake.

The Patoka River is a tributary of the Wabash River, approximately 138 mi long, in southwestern Indiana. It drains a largely rural area of forested bottomland and agricultural lands among the hills north of Evansville. It is said the name means "Log on Bottom". Patoka is the oldest town in Gibson county. One of the towns the author of this web site worked on in the 1960's was Patoka, Illinois. View: Everything Patoka. Patoka was a fleet oiler made famous as a tender for the airships USS Shenandoah (ZR-1), USS Los Angeles (ZR-3) and USS Akron (ZRS-4).

The Maumee River is in northwestern Ohio and northeastern Indiana. It is formed at Fort Wayne, Indiana and meanders northeastwardly for about 130 mi through an agricultural region of glacial moraines before flowing into the Maumee BayLake Erie at the city of Toledo, Ohio. Historically the river was also known as the "Miami" and in treaties with Native Americans, and as early as 1671 the river was called Miami of the Lake (in contrast to the "Miami of the Ohio" or the Great Miami River) or in French, Miami du Lac. Maumee is an anglicized spelling of the Ottawa name for the Miami Indians, maamii. The first USS Maumee (1864) was a 593 ton screw steam gunboat of the Union Navy.