<P> The Brazos River (/ ˈbræzəs / (listen) BRAZZ - əs), called the Rio de los Brazos de Dios (translated as "The River of the Arms of God") by early Spanish explorers, is the 11th - longest river in the United States of America at 1,280 miles (2,060 km) from its headwater source at the head of Blackwater Draw, Curry County, New Mexico to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico with a 45,000 - square - mile (116,000 km) drainage basin . It sometimes is used to mark the boundary between East Texas and West Texas . </P> <P> The Brazos proper begins at the confluence of the Salt Fork and Double Mountain Fork, two tributaries of the Upper Brazos that rise on the high plains of the Llano Estacado, flowing 840 miles (1,350 km) through the center of Texas . Another major tributary of the Upper Brazos is the Clear Fork Brazos River, which passes by Abilene and joins the main river near Graham . Important tributaries of the Lower Brazos include the Paluxy River, the Bosque River, the Little River, Yegua Creek, Nolan River, the Leon River, the San Gabriel River, the Lampasas River and the Navasota River . </P> <P> Initially running east towards Dallas - Fort Worth, the Brazos turns south, passing through Waco and the Baylor University campus, further south to near Calvert, Texas then past Bryan and College Station, then through Richmond, Texas in Fort Bend County, and into the Gulf of Mexico in the marshes just south of Freeport . </P> <P> The main stem of the Brazos is dammed in three places, all north of Waco, forming Possum Kingdom Lake, Lake Granbury, and Lake Whitney . Of these three, Granbury was the last to be completed, in 1969 . When its construction was proposed in the mid-1950s, John Graves wrote the book, Goodbye to a River . A small municipal dam (Lake Brazos Dam) is near the downstream city limit of Waco at the end of the Baylor campus; it raises the level of the river through the city to form a town lake . This impoundment of the Brazos through Waco is locally called Lake Brazos . A total of nineteen major reservoirs are located along the Brazos . </P>

Where does the brazos river empty into the gulf of mexico