When rivers make confusing boundaries

On May 24, 9:30 am, (Michael Moroney)
wrote:
> writes:
> >Does anything like this happen in the northeast? The longest river or
> >water state line I know of is the Connecticut River forming most of
> >the border between Vermont and New Hampshire. I often head north to
> >Brattleboro, VT and take Exit 3 from I-91 for US Route 5/VT Route 9
> >East. When walking over into Chesterfield, NH (the state line is only
> >1/3 mile east from the rotary on US Route 5), the state line sign is
> >clearly on the west side of the bridge. That's because NH claims much
> >of the Connecticut River as their territory. It's also why 90% of the
> >bridge carrying Route 9 over the river was paid for by them, with
> >Vermont paying for the west landing and the road reshaping on their
> >side (VT Route 9 passes under a railroad bridge between the rotary and
> >the bridge).
>
> When the NH/VT state line was defined, it was defined as the west shore of
> the river (along the low water mark, I believe), not the center of the
> river like most river boundaries. There have been some small shifts since
> then, leaving a few small pieces of NH on the west shore, and the border
> in the middle of the river, but nothing like what the Mississippi River
> does south of Tennessee.
>
> One of the sillier river boundary definitions happened in the 1930s when
> they created the Quabbin Reservoir in western Mass. 4 towns being flooded
> were eliminated, with their land area tacked onto adjacent towns. They
> redefined the town boundaries along the rivers being flooded, faithfully
> following all the squiggles. Then they completed the dams, flooding the
> rivers, so they and all their squiggles are long gone, except as town
> boundaries in the middle of the reservoir and on maps. (They also shifted
> county lines to follow the new town lines)

A similar things although I don't believe any town lines were
*changed* in the process -- the Remnants of the Flagstaff town line
can be seen winding their way thru Flagstaff Lake:
http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=45.21010,-70.36880&z=14&t=T