How does it arise that there are two Colorado rivers, and how does one distinguish between them?

Question

The storm in Houston has drawn to my attention, a fact of which I was previously unaware, that there are two quite separate Colorado rivers. In Britain we have various instances of rivers with the same name e.g. Avon, Ouse etc. But we usually distinguish them by talking about "The Great Ouse" and the "Yorkshire Ouse" etc. Please could someone explain to me how it arose that there were two Colorado Rivers, And if I describe one as "the Texas Colorado", what do I call the other?

Answer 1

If you say "the Colorado River" anywhere in America, they are always talking about the big long one that is actually in Colorado and 6 other states and that formed the Grand Canyon.

The Texas Colorado river is virtually unknown outside of Texas (sorry Texans) and is usually called the Texas Colorado. It was just an accident of geography by unimaginative early Spanish explorers who didn't have (or make) accurate maps too well, and yes, some of them thought the two rivers named Colorado actually connected, but they don't and never did. To add to the confusion, early Spanish explorers frequently got confused by two rivers in Texas, the Brazos and the Colorado, and at various times each was called the name of the other one until they sorted it out into the current naming convention.