MALHEUR RIVER

river rising on the southern slopes of the Blue Mountains in the Malheur National Forest, Oregon, U.S., and flowing southeast, north, and northeast to join the Snake River at Ontario at the Idaho state line, after a course of 165 mi (266 km). Warm Springs Reservoir, formed by Warm Springs Dam (1919), is in the river's upper course, north of Riverside. The name is the French word for misfortune, and the river is probably so called because a cache that the explorer Peter Skene Ogden had made near the stream (1826) was stolen.