Pease River

Length: 156 miles (251 kilometers)

The Pease River is a river in Texas in the United States; it is a tributary of the Red River that runs in an easterly direction through West Texas . It was discovered and mapped for the first time in 1856 by Jacob de C?rdova, who found the river while surveying for the Galveston, Houston and Henderson Railroad Company; it was named after Texas Governor Elisha M. Pease. In December 1860, the Texas Rangers recaptured Cynthia Ann Parker and her daughter from the Comanche Indians at an engagement along the river.

The river begins 20 miles northeast of Paducah in northern Cottle County and runs eastward for 100 miles (160 km) to its mouth on the Red River 8 miles northeast of Vernon. Its course flows through "flood-prone flat terrain with local shallow depressions, surfaced by sandy and clay loams"; part of it forms the county line between Hardeman and Foard counties.

The river has three main branches, the North Pease, Middle Pease, and Tongue (or South Pease) rivers; the beginning of the main river is variously given as where all three branches come together, or where only the North and Middle Pease Rivers intersect. Satellite and topographical imagery, however, clearly shows that the Tongue River empties into the Middle Pease before the latter's meeting with the North Pease.