river in Meagher county, central Montana, U.S. It rises in the Crazy Mountains within the Gallatin and the Lewis and Clark national forests, flowing 292 miles (470 km) northeastward past Harlowton and Roundup to Fort Peck Lake, a huge reservoir impounded by the Fort Peck Dam on the Missouri River, in northwest Garfield county. A small headstream is impounded near Martinsdale to form an irrigation reservoir. The river was named Musselshell by the explorers Meriwether Lewis (Lewis, Meriwether) and William Clark (Clark, William) in 1805, who, like the Indians and French trappers before them, found freshwater mussels on its banks.