The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in Colorado, specifically the Arkansas River Valley. The headwaters derive from the snowpack in the Sawatch and Mosquito mountain ranges. It flows east into Kansas and finally through Oklahoma and Arkansas, where it meets the Mississippi River.
At , it is the sixth-longest river in the United States, the second-longest tributary in the Mississippi–Missouri system, and the 47th longest river in the world. Its origin is in the Rocky Mountains in Lake County, Colorado, near Leadville. In 1859, placer gold discovered in the Leadville area brought thousands seeking to strike it rich, but the easily recovered placer gold was quickly exhausted. The Arkansas River's mouth is at Napoleon, Arkansas, and its drainage basin covers nearly .See watershed maps: 1 Its volume is much smaller than the Missouri and Ohio rivers, with a mean discharge of about .
The Arkansas from its headwaters to the 100th meridian west formed part of the U.S.–Mexico border from the Adams–Onís Treaty (in force 1821) until the Texas Annexation or Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Pronunciations The river is pronounced in Kansas, and in the other three states that it crosses.Random House Dictionary
Physical geography Course changes The path of the Arkansas River has changed over time. Sediments from the river found in a palaeochannel next to Nolan, a site in the Tensas Basin, show that part of the river's meander belt flowed through that area up to 3200 BCE. While it was previously thought that this relict channel was active at the same time as another relict of the Mississippi River's meander belt, it has been shown that this channel of the Arkansas was inactive approximately 400 years before the Mississippi channel was active.
Hydrography
The Arkansas has three distinct sections in its long path through central North America. At its headwaters beginning near Leadville, Colorado, the Arkansas runs as a steep fast-flowing mountain river through the Rockies in its narrow valley, dropping in . This section supports extensive whitewater rafting, including The Numbers (near Granite, Colorado), Brown's Canyon, and the Royal Gorge.
At Cañon City, Colorado, the Arkansas River valley widens and flattens markedly. Just west of Pueblo, Colorado, the river enters the Great Plains. Through the rest of Colorado, Kansas, and much of Oklahoma, it is a typical Great Plains riverway, with wide, shallow banks subject to seasonal flooding and periods of dwindling flow. Tributaries include the Cimarron and the Salt Fork Arkansas rivers.
In eastern Oklahoma, the river begins to widen further into a more contained consistent channel. To maintain more reliable flow rates, a series of dams and large reservoir lakes have been built on the Arkansas and its intersecting tributaries, including the Canadian, Verdigris, Neosho (Grand), Illinois, and Poteau rivers.O'Dell, Larry. Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. "Arkansas River. These locks and dams enable the river to be navigable by barges and large river craft downriver of Muskogee, Oklahoma, where the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System joins the Verdigris River.
Into western Arkansas, the river path works between the encroaching Boston and Ouachita mountains, including many isolated, flat-topped mesas, buttes, or monadnocks such as Mount Nebo, Petit Jean Mountain, and Mount Magazine, the highest point in the state. The river valley expands as it encounters much flatter land beginning just west of Little Rock, Arkansas. It continues eastward across the plains and forests of eastern Arkansas until it flows into the Mississippi River near Napoleon, Arkansas.
Water flow in the Arkansas River (as measured in central Kansas) has dropped from approximately average from 1944–1963 to average from 1984–2003, largely because of the pumping of groundwater for irrigation in eastern Colorado and western Kansas.
Important cities along the Arkansas River include Canon City, Pueblo, La Junta, and Lamar, Colorado; Garden City, Dodge City, Hutchinson, and Wichita, Kansas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Fort Smith and Little Rock, Arkansas.
The May 2002 I-40 bridge disaster took place on I-40's crossing of Kerr Reservoir on the Arkansas River near Webbers Falls, Oklahoma.
Table of primary tributaries
Waterway Orientation Length Mouthcoordinates Mouthaltitude Mouth location Sourcecoordinates Source location East Fork Arkansas River left Leadville, Colorado Lake County, Colorado Lake Creek right Lake County, Colorado Chaffee County, Colorado Chalk Creek right Chaffee County, Colorado Gunnison County, Colorado South Arkansas River right Chaffee County, Colorado Chaffee County, Colorado Hardscrabble Creek right Fremont County, Colorado Custer County, Colorado Fountain Creek left Pueblo, Colorado El Paso County, Colorado Saint Charles River right Custer County, Colorado Pueblo County, Colorado Chico Creek left Pueblo County, Colorado El Paso County, Colorado Huerfano River right Pueblo County, Colorado Huerfano County, Colorado Apishapa River right Olney Springs, Colorado Huerfano County, Colorado Horse Creek left Otero County, Colorado El Paso County, Colorado Purgatoire River right Bent County, Colorado Las Animas County, Colorado Two Butte Creek right Prowers County, Colorado Las Animas County, Colorado Bear Creek right Kearny County, Kansas Baca County, Colorado Pawnee River left Larned, Kansas Gray County, Kansas Rattlesnake Creek right Stafford County, Kansas Ford County, Kansas Cow Creek left Hutchinson, Kansas Barton County, Kansas Little Arkansas River left Sedgwick County, Kansas Rice County, Kansas Ninnescah River right Sumner County, Kansas Sedgwick County, Kansas Walnut River left Cowley County, Kansas Butler County, Kansas Grouse Creek left Cowley County, Kansas Butler County, Kansas Salt Fork Arkansas River right Kay County, Oklahoma Comanche County, Kansas Cimarron River right Pawnee County, Oklahoma Cimarron County, Oklahoma Neosho River left Muskogee County, Oklahoma Morris County, Kansas Verdigris River left Muskogee County, Oklahoma Madison, Kansas Canadian River right Haskell County, Oklahoma Las Animas County, Colorado Illinois River left Sequoyah County, Oklahoma Pope County, Arkansas Poteau River right Le Flore County, Oklahoma Izard County, Arkansas Mulberry River left Franklin County, Arkansas Newton County, Arkansas Big Piney Creek left Pope County, Arkansas Newton County, Arkansas Fourche La Fave River right Bigelow, Arkansas Scott County, Arkansas Bayou Meto left Arkansas County, Arkansas Faulkner County, Arkansas
Allocation problems
Since 1902, Kansas has claimed that Colorado takes too much of the river's water; it has filed numerous lawsuits over this issue in the U.S. Supreme Court that continue to this day,Kansas v. Colorado 514 U.S. 673 (1995), 185 U.S. 125 (1902) generally under the name of Kansas v. Colorado. The problems over the possession and use of Arkansas River water by Colorado and Kansas led to the creation of an interstate compact or agreement between the two states. While Congress approved the Arkansas River Compact in 1949, the compact did not stop further disputes by the two states over water rights to the river.
The Kansas–Oklahoma Arkansas River Basin Compact was created in 1965 to promote mutual consideration and equity over water use in the basin shared by those states. The Kansas–Oklahoma Arkansas River Commission was established, charged with administering the compact and reducing pollution. The compact was approved and implemented by both states in 1970 and has been in force since then.
Riverway commerce
The McClellan–Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System begins at the Tulsa Port of Catoosa on the Verdigris River, enters the Arkansas River near Muskogee, and runs via an extensive lock and dam system to the Mississippi River. Through Oklahoma and Arkansas, dams which artificially deepen and widen the river to sustain commercial barge traffic and recreational use give the river the appearance of a series of reservoirs."McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System 2016 Inland Waterway Fact Sheet". Oklahoma Department of Transportation. 2016. Accessed June 16, 2017.
The McClellan–Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System diverts from the Arkansas River upstream of the Wilbur D. Mills Dam to avoid the long winding route which the lower Arkansas River follows. This circuitous portion of the Arkansas River between the Wilbur D. Mills Dam and the Mississippi River was historically bypassed by river vessels. Early steamboats instead followed a network of rivers—known as the Arkansas Post Canal—which flowed north of the lower Arkansas River and followed a shorter and more direct route to the Mississippi River. When the McClellan–Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System was constructed between 1963 and 1970, the Arkansas Post Canal was significantly improved, while the lower Arkansas River continued to be bypassed by commercial vessels.
In history
Many nations of Native Americans lived near, or along, the 1,450-mile (2,334-km) stretch of the Arkansas River for thousands of years. The first Europeans to see the river were members of the Spanish Coronado expedition on June 29, 1541. Also in the 1540s, Hernando de Soto discovered the junction of the Arkansas with the Mississippi. The Spanish originally called the river Napeste. "The name "Arkansas" was first applied by French Father Jacques Marquette, who called the river Akansa in his journal of 1673, naming it the same name as the French called the tribal people who lived on the Arkansas River. Today this tribe is known as Quapaw. The Joliet-Marquette expedition travelled the Mississippi River from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin toward the Gulf of Mexico, but turned back at the mouth of the Arkansas River. By that time, they had encountered Native Americans carrying European trinkets and feared confrontation with Spanish conquistadors.
Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe, a French trader, explorer, and nobleman had led an expedition into what is now Oklahoma in 1718–19. His original objective was to establish a trading post near the present city of Texarkana, Arkansas, but he extended his trip overland as far north as the Arkansas River (which he designated as the Alcansas). The explorer wrote that he and nine other men, including three Caddo guides and 22 horses loaded with trade goods, had come to a native settlement overlooking the river, where there were about 6,000 natives, who gave the strangers a warm welcome. La Harpe's party was honored with the calumet ceremony and spent ten days at this location.
In 1988, evidence of a native village was discovered along the Arkansas River south of present-day Tulsa, Oklahoma. By then, the site was known as the Lasley Vore Site.Odell, George H. "Lasley Vore Site." Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Accessed January 26, 2017.