Arkansas River#Pronunciations

The river is alternatively pronounced {{IPAc-en|ɑr|ˈ|k|æ|n|z|ə|s}} {{respell|ar|KAN|zəs}} or {{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɑr|k|ən|s|ɔː}} {{respell|AR|kən-saw}}.[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Arkansas?r=66 Random House Dictionary]{{Cite news |first1=India |last1=Yarborough|title=Can you pronounce these 10 city names correctly? If so, there's a good chance you're from Kansas. |url=https://www.cjonline.com/story/news/local/2021/09/30/you-know-youre-from-kansas-how-to-pronounce-these-words-cities-correctly/5898868001/ |access-date=2023-08-13 |website=The Topeka Capital-Journal |language=en-US}}

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.{{citation |title = Alluvial Geoarchaeology of a Middle Archaic Mound Complex in the Lower Mississippi Valley, U.S.A. |first1 = Lee J. |last1 = Arco |first2 = Katherine A. |last2 = Adelsberger |first3 = Ling-yu |last3 = Hung |first4 = Tristam R. |last4 = Kidder |journal = Geoarchaeology|volume = 21 |issue = 6 |date = 2006 |doi = 10.1002/gea.20125 | page = 610|bibcode = 2006Gearc..21..591A |s2cid = 55514410 }}

File:Arkansas head waters.jpg]]

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 {{convert|4600|ft|m}} in {{convert|120|mi|km}}.{{cite book|last1=Kellogg|first1=Karl S.|title=Scientific Investigations Map |display-authors=et al|chapter=Geologic Map of the Upper Arkansas River Valley Region, North-Central Colorado|date=2017|publisher=U.S. Geological Survey|location=Reston, VA|doi=10.3133/sim3382 |chapter-url=http://purl.fdlp.gov/GPO/gpo88006|access-date=January 31, 2018}} 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. [http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/A/AR010.html Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. "Arkansas River.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130530204851/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/A/AR010.html |date=May 30, 2013 }} 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 {{convert|248|cuft/s|m3/s}} average from 1944–1963 to {{convert|53|cuft/s|m3/s}} 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.

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File:Arkansas River near Sterling KS.jpg

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.

File:Kerr-McClellan map.png

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.[https://www.ok.gov/odot/documents/2016%20WW%20FACT%20SHEET-revised.pdf "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 {{convert|2.5|mi|km|abbr=on}} 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.{{cite web |title=Arkansas - Verdigris River Navigation |publisher=American Canal Society |url=http://www.americancanals.org/Data_Sheets/Arkansas/Arkansas%20River%20rvsd3.pdf |access-date=April 30, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150913183501/http://www.americancanals.org/Data_Sheets/Arkansas/Arkansas%20River%20rvsd3.pdf |archive-date=September 13, 2015 |url-status=dead }}

File:Mount Harvard and the Valley of the Arkansas - NARA - 517702.jpg in distance, circa 1867. Photo by William Henry Jackson.]]

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. 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 {{convert|13|miles|km}} south of present-day Tulsa, Oklahoma. By then, the site was known as the Lasley Vore Site.[http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=LA024 Odell, George H. "Lasley Vore Site." Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture.] Accessed January 26, 2017.{{efn|A team led by Dr. George H. Odell, an anthropology professor from the University of Tulsa, uncovered artifacts that showed the natives were members of the Wichita people, and that the European artifacts also found there were of the same time period. Dr. Odell concluded this was most likely the place where la Harpe met the natives he described.}}

French traders and trappers who had opened up trade with Indian tribes in Canada and the areas around the Great Lakes began exploring the Mississippi and some of its northern tributaries. They soon learned that the birchbark canoes, which had served them so well on the northern waterways, were too light for use on southern rivers such as the Arkansas. They turned to making and using dugout canoes, which they called pirogues, made by hollowing out the trunks of cottonwood trees.{{efn|Pirogues are still used in the swamps and marshes of South Louisiana by descendants of the "Cajuns," who were exiled from eastern Canada by the British.}} Cottonwoods are plentiful along the streams of the southwest and grow to large sizes. The wood is soft and easily worked with the crude tools carried by both the French and Indians. The pirogues were sturdier and could be more useful for navigating the sandbars and snags of the Southern waterways.[http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Chronicles/v008/v008p065.html Wright, Muriel H. "Early Navigation and Commerce along the Arkansas and Red Rivers in Oklahoma." Chronicles of Oklahoma. Volume 8, Number 1, March, 1930. p. 65.] Accessed September 29, 2017.

In 1819, the Adams–Onís Treaty set the Arkansas as part of the frontier between the United States and Spanish Mexico. This continued until the United States annexed Texas after the Mexican–American War, in 1846. The treaty was made shortly after the "Old Settler" Cherokee were pushed out of Texas and moved near what became known as Webbers Falls on the Arkansas River. They planned to reunite with the Cherokee who had moved there on the Trail of Tears in 1839. That area, then part of Arkansas Territory, would become Indian Territory and later Oklahoma.

File:AG 274-59 - DPLA - 86b74bf3b50952718d08e5804b9d6b8c.jpg, in Colorado, 1936.]]

This area had long been the traditional territory of the Osage. They resisted the new Native Americans moving in with armed conflict. The US encouraged a peace treaty made in 1828 but the territory issue was still unresolved by the time thousands of additional Cherokee refugees moved to the area during the Trail of Tears.{{cite web|url=http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/vol2/treaties/che0288.htm|title=Treaty with the Western Cherokee, 1828|publisher=Oklahoma State University Library|access-date=March 28, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080509071820/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/treaties/che0288.htm|archive-date=May 9, 2008|url-status=dead}}{{cite journal|title=A New Treaty|journal=Cherokee Phoenix|volume=1|number=20|url=https://arts-sciences.und.edu/native-media-center/_files/docs/1803-1860/1828cherokeeontreatywitharkansascherokee.pdf|publisher=University of North Dakota|date=July 9, 1828|access-date=March 28, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160614165846/http://arts-sciences.und.edu/native-media-center/_files/docs/1803-1860/1828cherokeeontreatywitharkansascherokee.pdf|archive-date=June 14, 2016|url-status=dead}}

By the time Fort Smith was established in 1817, larger capacity watercraft became available to transport goods up and down the Arkansas. These included flatboats (bateaus) and keelboats. Along with the pirogues, they transported piles of deer, bear, otter, beaver, and buffalo skins up and down the river. Agricultural products such as corn, rice, dried peaches, beans, peanuts, snakeroot, sarsaparilla, and ginseng had grown in economic importance.

On March 31, 1820, the Comet became the first steamboat to successfully navigate part of the Arkansas River, reaching a place called Arkansas Post,{{efn|Arkansas Post is said to have been the first European settlement in the Mississippi Valley,}} about {{convert|60|miles|km}} above the confluence of the Arkansas and the Mississippi rivers.[https://www.swl.usace.army.mil/Missions/Navigation.aspx U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Little Rock District/ Mission/Navigation.] Accessed June 2, 2017. In mid-April 1822, the Robert Thompson, towing a keelboat, was the first steamboat to navigate the Arkansas as far as Fort Smith. For five years, Fort Smith was known as the head of navigation for steamboats on the river. It lost the title to Fort Gibson in April 1832, when three steamboats, Velocipede, Scioto, and Catawba, all arrived at Fort Gibson later that month.{{efn|Fort Gibson had been built in 1824 on the bank of the Verdigris River in what had been called the "Three Forks" area of Indian Territory.}}

Later, the Santa Fe Trail followed the Arkansas through much of Kansas, picking it up near Great Bend and continuing through to La Junta, Colorado. Some users elected to take the challenging Cimarron Cutoff starting at Cimarron, Kansas.[https://www.nps.gov/safe/planyourvisit/upload/SAFEmap1-2.pdf National Park Service]

{{main|Ambush of the steamboat J. R. Williams}}

During the American Civil War, each side tried to prevent the other from using the Arkansas River and its tributaries as a route for moving reinforcements. Initially, the Union Army abandoned its forts in the Indian Territory, including Fort Gibson and Fort Smith, to maximize its strength for campaigns elsewhere. The Confederate Army sent troops from Texas to support its Native American allies. Union troops returned to the area later in the war, after defeating the Confederates at the Battle of Pea Ridge and the Battle of Fort Smith. They began recovering the position it had previously abandoned, most notably Fort Gibson and reopened the Arkansas River as a supply route. In September 1864, a body of Confederate irregulars led by General Stand Watie (Cherokee) successfully ambushed a Union supply ship bound for Fort Gibson. The vessel was destroyed, and a part of its cargo was looted by the Confederates.

By 1890, water from the Arkansas River was being used to irrigate more than {{convert|20000|acres|ha}} of farmland in Kansas. By 1910, irrigation projects in Colorado had caused the river to stop flowing in July and August.[http://projects.scsc.k12.ar.us/index.php?page=arkansas-river "History of the Arkansas River (1540 to 2000)". South Central Service Cooperative. 2017.]{{Dead link|date=May 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Accessed June 4, 2017.

Flooding in 1927 severely damaged or destroyed nearly every levee downstream of Fort Smith, and led to the development of the Arkansas River Flood Control Association. It also resulted in the Federal government assigning responsibility for flood control and navigation on the Arkansas River to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACOE).

File:Fly Fishermen on the Arkansas River Near Salida Colorado.jpg]]

The headwaters of the Arkansas River in central Colorado have been known for exceptional trout fishing, particularly fly fishing, since the 19th century, when greenback cutthroat trout dominated the river.{{Cite journal|last=Harris |first=William C. |date=September 1892 |title=The Trouts of Colorado and Utah |journal=The American Angler |volume=21 |issue=12 |pages=515–528 }} Today, brown trout dominate the river, which also contains rainbow trout. Trout Unlimited considers the Arkansas one of the top 100 trout streams in America,{{Cite book |last=Ross |first=John |title=Trout Unlimited's Guide to America's 100 Best Trout Streams |publisher=Lyons Press |location=Guilford, CT |year=2005 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/troutunlimitedsg0000ross_p0l1/page/241 241–243] |isbn=1-59228-585-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/troutunlimitedsg0000ross_p0l1/page/241 }} a reputation the river has had since the 1950s.{{Cite book|last=Campbell |first=Duncan |title=88 Top Trout Streams of the West |publisher=Western Outdoors |location=Newport Beach, CA |year=1960 |pages=64–65 }} From Leadville to Pueblo, the Arkansas River is serviced by numerous fly shops and guides operating in Buena Vista, Salida, Cañon City, and Pueblo. Colorado Parks and Wildlife provides regular online fishing reports for the river.{{Cite book |last=Bartholomew |first=Marty |title=Fly Fisher's Guide to Colorado |publisher=Wilderness Adventures Press |location=Belgrade, MT |year=1998 |isbn=978-1-885106-56-8 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/flyfishersguidet00bart/page/38 38–49] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/flyfishersguidet00bart/page/38 }}[http://wildlife.state.co.us/Fishing/Reports/StatewideConditions/ Colorado Division of Wildlife Fishing Reports] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090307014917/http://wildlife.state.co.us/Fishing/Reports/StatewideConditions/ |date=March 7, 2009 }}

A fish kill occurred on December 29, 2010, in which an estimated 100,000 freshwater drum lined the Arkansas River bank.{{cite news|url=http://www.4029tv.com/r/26356470/detail.html |title=Experts Close In On What Killed Fish - NW Arkansas News Story - KHBS NW Arkansas |date=January 3, 2011 |publisher=KHBS |access-date=January 4, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110111065750/http://www.4029tv.com/r/26356470/detail.html |archive-date=January 11, 2011 }} An investigation, conducted by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, found the dead fish "... cover {{convert|17|mi|disp=sqbr}} of the river from the Ozark Lock and Dam downstream to River Mile 240, directly south of Hartman, Arkansas."{{cite web|url=http://www.agfc.com/Pages/newsDetails.aspx?show=145|title=Arkansas River Fish Kill Investigation Continues|date=January 3, 2011|publisher=Arkansas Game and Fish Commission|access-date=May 14, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160808204643/http://www.agfc.com/Pages/newsDetails.aspx?show=145|archive-date=August 8, 2016|url-status=dead}} Tests later indicated the likely cause of the kill was gas bubble trauma caused by opening the spillways on the Ozark Dam.{{cite web|title=Gas Bubble Trauma likely cause of fish kills|url=http://www.agfc.com/Pages/newsDetails.aspx?show=197|website=Arkansas Game and Fish Commission|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160808233640/http://www.agfc.com/Pages/newsDetails.aspx?show=197 |archive-date=August 8, 2016|access-date=May 14, 2017}}

{{wide image|Littlerockarkansas arkansasriverpano.jpg|800px|The Arkansas River passing through Little Rock, Arkansas, as viewed from the north bank in North Little Rock}}

{{wide image|Yancopin Bridge.jpg|800px|The Yancopin Bridge is the last crossing of the Arkansas River before it flows into the Mississippi River}}

{{gallery|mode=packed|align=center

|File:Arkansas River in downtown Pueblo, CO IMG_5116.JPG|Arkansas River in downtown Pueblo, Colorado

|File:Wichitanightskyline.jpg|Downtown Wichita, Kansas, skyline at night from The Keeper of the Plains at the Arkansas River

|File:Arkansas River, Looking Across To North Little Rock 423757092.jpg|Arkansas River, looking across to North Little Rock

|File:USACE John Martin Dam Arkansas River.jpg|John Martin Dam and Reservoir on the Arkansas River in Bent County, Colorado

|File:Tulsa, Oklahoma.jpg|The Arkansas River in Tulsa, Oklahoma

|File:Arkansas River (Royal Gorge).jpg|Royal Gorge

|File:Arkansas_river_salida_co.JPG|Arkansas River in Salida, Colorado

|File:Natural landing.jpg|The Arkansas River in Natural Steps, Arkansas

|File:Arkansas River at Van Buren, AR.jpg|Arkansas River between Van Buren and Fort Smith, Arkansas

}}

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• Ackerman Island
• Kansas v. Colorado
• List of crossings of the Arkansas River
• List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem)
• Listing of rivers for each state: Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas
• McClellan–Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System

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• [https://web.archive.org/web/20170215023018/http://www.co-ks-arkansasrivercompactadmin.org/home.html Colorado-Kansas Arkansas River Compact] (archived)
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110708192526/http://www.friendsofthearkansasriver.org/ Friends of the Arkansas River] (archived)
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060615112718/http://equusinfo.org/eb_map.shtml Aquifer saturation map] for Equus Beds Aquifer Recharge Project (archived)
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20030718215527/http://www.arkriver.org/ Arkansas River Coalition] (archived)
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20050323184333/http://earthtrends.wri.org/maps_spatial/maps_fullscale.cfm?mapID=391&theme=2 Full Scale Map] (archived)
• [http://www.santafetrailresearch.com Santa Fe Trail Research]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060117105541/http://www.wichita.gov/CityOffices/Environmental/WATERCenter/Tours/ Wichita Water Center Tours] (archived)
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20051226171234/http://www.tulsaport.com/navigation_system_map.html Animated Map] of navigation system (archived)
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20130530204851/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/A/AR010.html Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture – Arkansas River] (archived)
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20121024013411/http://www.library.okstate.edu/okmaps/ Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory] (archived)
• {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Arkansas (river)|display=Arkansas, a river of the United States of America |short=x}}
• {{Cite NIE|wstitle=Arkansas River|short=x}}
• {{Cite EB9|wstitle=Arkansas|volume=2|short=x}} Arkansas River is discussed at the end of this article.
• {{Cite AmCyc|wstitle=Arkansas (river)|display=Arkansas, a S. W. river of the United States |short=x}}
• [https://www.usgs.gov/centers/kansas-water-science-center/historic-floods-along-arkansas-river "Historic Floods Along Arkansas River"] (which mostly describes effects, on normal flows, of climate, geology, and human diversions of the river and its waters), Kansas Water Science Center, USGS.

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Category:Rivers of Oklahoma

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