44-709: 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
88-440: A cataract into another becomes the upper fork, and the one it descends into, the lower ; or by relative volume: the smaller stream designated the little fork, the larger either retaining its name unmodified, or receives the designation big . Tributaries are sometimes listed starting with those nearest to the source of the river and ending with those nearest to the mouth of the river . The Strahler stream order examines
132-467: A lake . A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean . Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they flow, drain the surrounding drainage basin of its surface water and groundwater , leading the water out into an ocean. The Irtysh is a chief tributary of the Ob river and is also the longest tributary river in the world with a length of 4,248 km (2,640 mi). The Madeira River
176-756: A tree data structure . Grand River (Oklahoma) The Grand River is an alternate name for the lower section of the Neosho River , a tributary of the Arkansas River in Oklahoma . "Grand River" refers to the section of river below the confluence of the Neosho and Spring rivers in Ottawa County near Miami . It empties into the Arkansas northeast of Muskogee , just downstream from
220-406: A West Fork as well (now filled in). Forks are sometimes designated as right or left. Here, the handedness is from the point of view of an observer facing upstream. For instance, Steer Creek has a left tributary which is called Right Fork Steer Creek. These naming conventions are reflective of the circumstances of a particular river's identification and charting: people living along the banks of
264-414: A forking of the stream to the right and to the left, which then appear on their charts as such; or the streams are seen to diverge by the cardinal direction (north, south, east, or west) in which they proceed upstream, sometimes a third stream entering between two others is designated the middle fork; or the streams are distinguished by the relative height of one to the other, as one stream descending over
308-439: A river, with a name known to them, may then float down the river in exploration, and each tributary joining it as they pass by appears as a new river, to be given its own name, perhaps one already known to the people who live upon its banks. Conversely, explorers approaching a new land from the sea encounter its rivers at their mouths, where they name them on their charts, then, following a river upstream, encounter each tributary as
352-660: 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. 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 ,
396-650: A site in the Tensas Basin , show that part of the river's meander belt flowed through 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. The Arkansas has three distinct sections in its long path through central North America. At its headwaters beginning near Leadville , Colorado ,
440-533: Is the largest tributary river by volume in the world with an average discharge of 31,200 m /s (1.1 million cu ft/s). A confluence , where two or more bodies of water meet, usually refers to the joining of tributaries. The opposite to a tributary is a distributary , a river or stream that branches off from and flows away from the main stream. Distributaries are most often found in river deltas . Right tributary , or right-bank tributary , and left tributary , or left-bank tributary , describe
484-545: 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
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#1732765620559528-415: The Mississippi River near Napoleon, Arkansas . Water flow in the Arkansas River (as measured in central Kansas ) has dropped from approximately 248 cubic feet per second (7.0 m/s) average from 1944–1963 to 53 cubic feet per second (1.5 m/s) average from 1984–2003, largely because of the pumping of groundwater for irrigation in eastern Colorado and western Kansas . Important cities along
572-540: 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 . 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,
616-619: 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. The McClellan–Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System diverts from
660-527: The U.S.–Mexico border from the Adams–Onís Treaty (in force 1821) until the Texas Annexation or Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo . The river is alternatively pronounced / ɑːr ˈ k æ n z ə s / ar- KAN -zəs or / ˈ ɑːr k ən s ɔː / AR -kən-saw . The path of the Arkansas River has changed over time. Sediments from the river found in a palaeochannel next to Nolan,
704-601: The Arkansas River 2.5 mi (4.0 km) 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
748-572: 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 20,000 acres (8,100 ha) of farmland in Kansas. By 1910, irrigation projects in Colorado had caused
792-539: 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
836-488: 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. 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, a reputation the river has had since the 1950s. From Leadville to Pueblo,
880-425: 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 . Since 1902, Kansas has claimed that Colorado takes too much of
924-533: 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. A fish kill occurred on December 29, 2010, in which an estimated 100,000 freshwater drum lined the Arkansas River bank . An investigation, conducted by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, found
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#1732765620559968-657: The Arkansas River, reaching a place called Arkansas Post , about 60 miles (97 km) above the confluence of the Arkansas and the Mississippi rivers. 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. Later,
1012-538: The Arkansas runs as a steep fast-flowing mountain river through the Rockies in its narrow valley, dropping 4,600 feet (1,400 m) in 120 miles (190 km). 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 ,
1056-474: 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
1100-716: The Mississippi River. At 1,469 miles (2,364 km), 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
1144-656: 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
1188-692: 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 . This area had long been
1232-493: 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. Cottonwoods are plentiful along
1276-407: The arrangement of tributaries in a hierarchy of first, second, third and higher orders, with the first-order tributary being typically the least in size. For example, a second-order tributary would be the result of two or more first-order tributaries combining to form the second-order tributary. Another method is to list tributaries from mouth to source, in the form of a tree structure , stored as
1320-602: 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. The McClellan–Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System begins at
1364-553: The dead fish "... cover 17 miles [27 km] of the river from the Ozark Lock and Dam downstream to River Mile 240, directly south of Hartman, Arkansas ." Tests later indicated the likely cause of the kill was gas bubble trauma caused by opening the spillways on the Ozark Dam. Tributary A tributary , or an affluent , is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream ( main stem or "parent" ), river, or
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1408-464: The easily recovered placer gold was quickly exhausted. The Arkansas River's mouth is at Napoleon, Arkansas , and its drainage basin covers nearly 170,000 square miles (440,000 km). Its volume is much smaller than the Missouri and Ohio rivers, with a mean discharge of about 40,000 cubic feet per second (1,100 m/s). The Arkansas from its headwaters to the 100th meridian west formed part of
1452-579: 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. Many nations of Native Americans lived near, or along, the 1,450-mile (2,334-km) stretch of
1496-660: The midpoint. In the United States, where tributaries sometimes have the same name as the river into which they feed, they are called forks . These are typically designated by compass direction. For example, the American River in California receives flow from its North, Middle, and South forks. The Chicago River 's North Branch has the East, West, and Middle Fork; the South Branch has its South Fork, and used to have
1540-428: The orientation of the tributary relative to the flow of the main stem river. These terms are defined from the perspective of looking downstream, that is, facing the direction the water current of the main stem is going. In a navigational context, if one were floating on a raft or other vessel in the main stream, this would be the side the tributary enters from as one floats past; alternately, if one were floating down
1584-618: 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,
1628-446: 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
1672-611: The river to stop flowing in July and August. 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). The headwaters of
1716-479: The river's water; it has filed numerous lawsuits over this issue in the U.S. Supreme Court that continue to this day, 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,
1760-527: 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 13 miles (21 km) south of present-day Tulsa, Oklahoma . By then, the site was known as the Lasley Vore Site . French traders and trappers who had opened up trade with Indian tribes in Canada and
1804-520: 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. In 1819, the Adams–Onís Treaty set the Arkansas as part of the frontier between the United States and Spanish Mexico . This continued until
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1848-532: 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 . By the time Fort Smith was established in 1817, larger capacity watercraft became available to transport goods up and down
1892-472: The tributary, the main stream meets it on the opposite bank of the tributary. This information may be used to avoid turbulent water by moving towards the opposite bank before approaching the confluence. An early tributary is a tributary that joins the main stem river closer to its source than its mouth, that is, before the river's midpoint ; a late tributary joins the main stem further downstream, closer to its mouth than to its source, that is, after
1936-463: 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
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