The Great Raft was an enormous log jam or series of " rafts " that clogged the Red and Atchafalaya rivers in North America from perhaps the 12th century until its removal in the 1830s. It was unique in North America in terms of its scale.
21-496: The Great Raft possibly began forming in the 12th century, or earlier. It grew from its upper end, while decaying or washing out at the lower end. By the early 1830s, it spanned more than 160 miles (260 km). The raft, at one point, extended for 165 miles (266 km) from Loggy Bayou to Carolina Bluffs. Because of its scale, the Great Raft became incorporated in the mythology of the regional Caddo tribe , which had been in
42-472: A swamp of the same name in Drew County in southeastern Arkansas . 32°11′08″N 93°27′00″W / 32.18556°N 93.45000°W / 32.18556; -93.45000 Atchafalaya River The Atchafalaya River ( / ə ˌ tʃ æ f . ə ˈ l aɪ . ə / French : La Rivière Atchafalaya , Spanish : Río Atchafalaya ) is a 137-mile-long (220 km) distributary of
63-489: A geomorphic threshold, a flashy hydrograph and a very heavy sediment load. At the beginning of the 19th century, the raft extended from Campti, Louisiana , to around Shreveport, Louisiana . The raft blocked the mouth of Twelve Mile Bayou , impeding settlement in the area west of Shreveport. There were many smaller logjams on the Red River. The raft raised the banks of the river, creating bayous and several lakes. Called
84-830: A major distributary emptying separately into the Gulf of Mexico . In the 20th century, to maintain the Mississippi, the US Army Corps of Engineers built the multibillion-dollar Old River Control Structure . Loggy Bayou Loggy Bayou is a 17.3-mile-long (27.8 km) stream in northwestern Louisiana which connects Lake Bistineau with the Red River . Bistineau is the reservoir of Dorcheat Bayou , which flows 115 miles (185 km) southward from Nevada County , Arkansas , into Webster Parish . Loggy Bayou flows through south Bossier Parish , west of Ringgold , in
105-690: A navigation lock, and a power plant near Red River Landing, Louisiana. In times of extreme flooding, the Morganza Spillway further downstream is also used to regulate volume. In 1942 part of the flow of the Atchafalaya River was diverted through Wax Lake to the Gulf of Mexico further west. During the 2011 Mississippi River floods , the Old River complex was discharging more than 706,000 cubic feet per second (20,000 m /s) into
126-536: A single channel to a series of anastomosing channels. It is believed that the initial formation of the Great Raft was triggered by catastrophic flooding as the Red River was going through some major geomorphic threshold, such as a major avulsion . The main contributors to the development of the Great Raft are believed to be the shifting geomorphic conditions in conjunction with extensive precipitation, river bank rotational slips and slab failure, rapid lateral migration, copious, rapidly growing riparian vegetation, exceeding
147-467: A southerly direction through Bienville Parish , and into Red River Parish , where north of Coushatta it joins the Red River, a tributary of the Mississippi . At East Point, LA , the river has a mean annual discharge of 1,960 cubic feet per second. One of the first settlements on Loggy Bayou was Ninock, established in 1837 by Peabody Atkinson Morse, a Massachusetts native. Its name refers to
168-567: A steam-powered boat used for raft removal. He had already used this technology to clear navigational paths in the Ohio and Mississippi rivers in 1827. Captain Shreve arrived at the toe of the Great Raft in April 1833 with four snag boats and a force of 159 men. His group began clearing a navigational path through 115 km of the Great Raft and, finally, by the spring of 1838, a path had been cleared; however,
189-740: Is US 71 . The WMA is regulated by the Minden office of the United States Army Corps of Engineers that owns 2,138 acres, the Louisiana Office of State Lands owning 159 acres, and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF). The area consists of an alluvial floodplain with bottomland hardwoods . Hunting, fishing, birding, and hiking are permitted. There is a boat launch and designated camping areas. This Loggy Bayou should not be confused with
210-597: The Great Raft , a historical log jam that clogged the Red and Atchafalaya rivers until its removal in the 1830s. The Loggy Bayou Wildlife Management Area (WMA) consists of 6,558 acres (26.54 km ), approximately 20 miles southeast of Bossier City in south Bossier Parish. The WMA is bordered on the north by LA 154 and the entire east side is bordered by Loggy Bayou. The irregular west boundary partially borders Flat River and Bossier Point road. The southern boundary
231-680: The Mississippi River and Red River in south central Louisiana in the United States. It flows south, just west of the Mississippi River, and is the fifth largest river in North America, by discharge. The name Atchafalaya comes from Choctaw for 'long river', from hachcha , 'river', and falaya , 'long'. The Atchafalaya River is navigable and provides a significant industrial shipping channel for
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#1732772238982252-597: The Atchafalaya River, and the Morganza Floodway was discharging one-fourth of its capacity. If the Mississippi were allowed to flow freely, the shorter and steeper Atchafalaya would capture the main flow of the Mississippi, permitting the river to bypass its current path through the important ports of Baton Rouge and New Orleans . Despite control efforts, some researchers believe the likelihood of this event increases each year due to natural forces inherent to river deltas. The Atchafalaya River meanders south as
273-490: The Great Raft Lakes, these included Caddo and Cross Lakes , along the lower reaches of the Red River 's tributaries. Ports developed along these lakes, and Jefferson, Texas , on Caddo Lake became the second-largest inland port in the United States during this period. The city thrived and was considered a major gateway to East Texas. It was important for shipping out area commodity crops, such as cotton. In 1829,
294-728: The Mississippi connects to the Red River by the 7-mile-long (11 km) canalized Old River (part of the Old River Control Structure ). It receives 30% of the combined flow of the Red and Mississippi Rivers. (The remaining 70% continues down the Mississippi River.) The volume the Atchafalaya receives from the Mississippi is controlled by the Old River Control Structure, a system of a low-sill structure, an auxiliary structure, an overbank structure,
315-475: The Red River. This task was continued by others until the latter part of the 19th century. For his efforts, the city of Shreveport was named after him. Although Shreve had completely removed the original raft, another soon formed farther up the river. The new foot was at the head of the old raft, near today's Belcher, Louisiana . This second raft gradually extended until it reached the Arkansas state line. This
336-535: The US Army Corps of Engineers hired steamboat builder and river captain Henry Miller Shreve (1785–1851), Superintendent of Western River Improvement, to remove the Great Raft to improve the river's navigation. Harrelson et al. describes this effort: Captain Shreve was a steamboat entrepreneur who had successfully invested in the new steam-power technology by developing the snag boat ,
357-448: The area for thousands of years. They credited it with protecting them from competing tribes, as well as intermittently causing floods on the land and making it fertile for agriculture. Harrelson et al. describe the origins of the raft: This ecosystem of entangled logs, vegetation and sediments remained in place for almost two millennia, altering the flow regime of the Red River and causing a complete change in its geomorphic character from
378-426: The remnants of the Great Raft along the river banks were not cleared and the Great Raft immediately began to reform When Shreve began work, the raft blocked a distance from 8 miles (13 km) directly below to 17 miles (27 km) directly above Shreveport. By April 1835, Shreve had removed the raft up to the mouth of Twelvemile Bayou. He concluded this work in 1838, having removed the last impediment to navigation on
399-469: The state of Louisiana. It is the cultural heart of the Cajun Country . The maintenance of the river as a navigable channel of the Mississippi River has been a significant project of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for more than a century. Natural development of the river channel, coupled with channel training and maintenance for flood control and navigation, have combined to isolate the river from
420-487: The swamp. The river valley forms the Atchafalaya Basin and Atchafalaya Swamp located in southern Louisiana near the Gulf of Mexico . The Atchafalaya became a main distributary of the Mississippi in 1839 to 1849 when locals removed a huge log jam (the Great Raft ) that was obstructing the Atchafalaya River. The river is formed near Simmesport at the confluence of the Red River with the Mississippi, where
441-526: Was removed in 1873 by Lieutenant Eugene Woodruff. When the log jams were removed, the water level in Caddo Lake and others dropped dramatically, reducing their navigability for riverboats. The ports declined, and riverboats ceased to travel in Caddo Lake. The removal of the massive log jams hastened the capture of the Mississippi River 's waters in lower Louisiana by the Atchafalaya River ,
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