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48-506: The oldest find is the "Heavener Runestone," first documented in 1923. It is a 19th-century artifact made by a Scandinavian immigrant (possibly a Swede working at the local train depot). Two other "Heavener Runestones" are most likely not runic at all but exhibit incisions of Native American origin. Three other runestones, found in Poteau, Shawnee and Pawnee, are of modern date. The Heavener Runestone ( pronounced / ˈ h iː v n ər / )

96-645: A palaeochannel next to Nolan, 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

144-541: A speech to the Poteau Chamber of Commerce he said that the Heavener stone "Is probably in the top 20 I’ve seen in the world, just for the sheer size and impressive nature of it.” He said that it was probably 19th century with a 20% probability of it being 10th or 11th century. “All words have endings, back 1,000 and 500 years ago, and that is one thing we find disturbing,” Williams said of the nonconforming ending on

192-592: Is a 55-acre (220,000 m ) park located in Le Flore County , Oklahoma near the city of Heavener, Oklahoma . Formerly a state park of Oklahoma, it was transferred to the City of Heavener in 2011, and is now operated by the Friends of Heavener Runestone, a non-profit organization. The Festival held at the park on two weekends a year serves as a fundraiser for operating and maintaining the park. Opened in 1970,

240-637: Is a soft red Permian sandstone, writing that "the inscription is... remarkably fresh and certainly not as worn or weathered as the stone's natural surface. The Survey staff has viewed other exposures of this Permian sandstone which have carved dates as late as 1957 that are more worn and weathered..." Both the Shawnee and Pawnee runestones are products of the modern period. The inscription reads ᛗᛚᛞᛟᚲ, either mldok or midok , in standard Elder Futhark lettering. Heavener Runestone Park Heavener Runestone Park ( pronounced / ˈ h iː v n ər / )

288-624: Is located in Heavener Runestone Park in Le Flore County, Oklahoma , near Heavener, Oklahoma . The runes on the stone are ᚷ ᛆ ᛟ ᛗ ᛖ ᛞ ᚨ ᛐ . Most of these characters belong to the Elder Futhark , but the final "L" is reversed compared with the last "A", and the second character is a short-twig "A" from the Younger Futhark . The transcription is then gaomedal , but is generally thought that

336-552: Is now managed by a group of volunteers that make a 501c3 non profit organization. Arkansas River 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

384-601: 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 . 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

432-663: 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

480-490: The Midwestern United States . Two additional sandstone slabs, each with short runic markings, were each found a mile north and south of the stone. Scandinavian presence in the nearby town of Heavener is early and the likeliest source of the carving of the stone. The park became the site for the annual Heavener Runestone Festival Fundraiser in 2011. It actually occurs on two weekends each year. Features of

528-481: 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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576-576: 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

624-619: 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. These locks and dams enable the river to be navigable by barges and large river craft downriver of Muskogee, Oklahoma , where

672-541: 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,

720-620: 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

768-794: 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 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

816-601: 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

864-572: 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

912-540: 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

960-491: 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,

1008-425: 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

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1056-537: 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

1104-661: 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,

1152-475: 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

1200-560: The Heavener Runestone. “None of the American inscriptions ever found have any kind of layout or ornamentation. That’s another thing that doesn’t really fit the pattern.” He also noted that "There are no Vikings or earlier inscriptions on Iceland or Greenland, so it’s a big jump from Sweden to Heavener." In 1991, Carl Albert State College in nearby Poteau changed its mascot to a Viking in the stone's honor. The Poteau stone

1248-552: 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 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

1296-625: The Runestone. The park also offers the top portion for private use for special events such as weddings, reunions birthdays etc for a fee. The Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department announced in March 2011 that it would close the Heavener Runestone State Park on August 15, 2011, due to budget cuts. However, the City of Heavener agreed to assume ownership and operation of the 55-acre park beginning July 1, 2011. The park

1344-656: 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

1392-692: 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

1440-744: The University of Leicester (published in ESOP 29 2011:5-43) examined the runestone and noted: "Barring any new evidence, the stone is best considered a modern creation." Henrik Williams, professor in Nordic languages at University of Uppsala , visited Oklahoma in 2015 as part of a tour sponsored by the American Association for Runic Studies in collaboration with Uppsala University and the American Friends of Uppsala University. In

1488-494: 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

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1536-603: 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

1584-491: The eight letters, five are Elder Futhark, one Younger Futhark. The other two he calls "spurious". He writes: " By excluding the last two letters as spurious, five are on the Heavener stone itself. The only one left is a straight line. To the author’s eyes, the Poteau Stone is a copy of the Heavener stone, with the addition of three spurious runic symbols as script-inflation." Swedish Professor Henrik Williams believes that

1632-502: The event include Celtic and folk music, swordplay, displays of variety of merchant booths, games, a hike to view the runestone, and overnight camping. Cast and Volunteers are all dressed in costume and many attendees dress up as well. The purpose of the festival, besides pure enjoyment, is fundraising to support the park. Heavener Park offers , picnic tables, outdoor grills, primitive campsites with showers available, amphitheater, playground, hiking, exploring, and educational programs about

1680-658: The inscription is modern, with the stone and toolmarks not as weathered as would be expected if it were from the Viking period. The Shawnee stone was found in 1969 by three children in Shawnee, Oklahoma , one mile from the North Canadian River , which is a tributary of the Arkansas River . Professor Don G Wyckoff, an archaeologist at the University of Oklahoma, examined the Shawnee stone and noted that it

1728-483: The intention is that the second character should be an elder futhark "N" (also reversed). The inscription then reads gnomedal (either "gnome valley", or a personal name "G. Nomedal"). Media presented at the Visitor Center translate the ᛆ as an "L," and state that the inscription was probably a claim marker meaning "valley belonging to Glome," or "Glome's Valley." Archaeologist Ken Feder notes that unlike

1776-580: 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

1824-576: The park has been erected around the Heavener Runestone , a rock found in 1923. The stone is located on Poteau Mountain just outside the town's limits in the scrub-forest foothills of the Ouachita Mountains . Media state that the inscription was probably a claim marker meaning "valley belonging to Glome," or "Glome's Valley." There is no evidence of Norse presence and nothing similar has been found anywhere near Heavener or even in

1872-480: 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 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

1920-613: 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

1968-481: 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,

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2016-509: The situation in eastern Canada where evidence has been found that proves a Norse presence, nothing similar has been found anywhere near Heavener or even in the Midwestern United States . He suggests that "It is unlikely that the Norse would get significantly more fastidious about leaving any evidence behind of their presence in Oklahoma." Archaeologist Lyle Tompsen in a 2007 Masters Thesis for

2064-530: 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

2112-521: 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

2160-534: 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

2208-505: Was active. 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 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

2256-424: Was found by schoolboys in 1967 near Poteau in Le Flore County , Oklahoma. Tompsen also examined this stone, and writes that it is carved into sandstone and is 15 inches long and shows little weathering. The inscription reads ᚷ ᛆ ᛟ ᛁ ᛖ ᚨ ᛚ ᚦ and Thompsen writes, "This stone consists of a mixture of letters and alphabets from different times." He transcribes these as GLOIEA(?)(?). Of

2304-463: 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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