It flows about 75 miles (121 km) from its source, the Emmons Glacier on Mount Rainier, to join the Puyallup River at Sumner.

The river is paralleled by much of its upper course by State Route 410, called the Mather Memorial Parkway in the national park.

A few miles downriver from the West Fork confluence another major tributary joins, the Greenwater River.

Below Mud Mountain Dam the White River enters the greater Tacoma metropolitan area.

A diversion dam near Buckley taps the White River's water, sending a portion of it through a flume, a canal, and a pipeline to Lake Tapps.

[7] Mud Mountain Dam, built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers for flood control purposes, was completed in 1948.

[4] After Mud Mountain Dam was built, the farmers of the lower White River were freed from the previously near-constant worry about flooding.

[7] In 1911 a diversion dam was built near Buckley which, along with a system of dikes around the originally small Lake Tapps, created a larger reservoir.

The reservoir's water is returned to the White River about 20 miles (32 km) downstream from the diversion dam.

The White River valley was the scene of violent clashes between Native Americans and the militias of Washington Territory as well as the U.S. Army during the Puget Sound War of 1855-1856.

Volunteer US troops were ambushed[9] while on their way to work on a construction project near a ferry across the river in the last altercation in the war.