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The headwaters of the Arkansas near Leadville, Colorado
The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. The Arkansas generally flows to the east and southeast, and traverses the states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.
At 1450 miles (2334 km) it is the fourth longest river in the United States. Its origin is in the Colorado Rockies in Lake County near Leadville, and its outlet is at the historic site of Napoleon, Arkansas. It is the 2nd largest tributary in the Mississippi-Missouri system, with a drainage basin of nearly 195,000 sq. mi. (505,000 km²) (See watershed maps: 1)
The Arkansas has three distinct characters in its long path through central North America.
At its headwaters the Arkansas runs as a steep mountain torrent through the Rockies, dropping 4600 feet (1.4 km) in 120 miles (193 km). At Cañon City, Colorado, it leaves the mountains and enters Royal Gorge. This section sees extensive Whitewater rafting in the spring and summer.
For most of its length through the rest of Colorado and Kansas, it is a typical Great Plains riverway, with wide shallow banks, subject to seasonal flooding. Tributaries include the Cimarron River flowing from NE New Mexico and the Salt Fork Arkansas River
Important cities along the Lower Arkansas include: Wichita, Kansas, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Little Rock, Arkansas.
The I-40 Bridge Disaster of May 2002 took place on I-40's crossing of the Arkansas River near Webbers Falls, Oklahoma.
[edit] Riverway commerce
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Main article: Kerr/McClellan Navigational Channel
Inland waterway system with Kerr/McClellan Navigational Channel shown in red.
The Kerr/McClellan Navigational Channel (also sometimes referred to as the Arkansas River Navigation System)
begins at Catoosa, Oklahoma and run via an extensive Lock and Dam system to the Mississippi.
Lower Arkansas River
Through Oklahoma and Arkansas, dams artificially deepen and widen this modest sized river to build it into a commercially navigable body of water somewhere between Fort Smith, Arkansas and Pine Bluff, according to the season. From this point to its mouth, the Arkansas sustains commercial barge traffic and offers passenger and recreational use and is little more than a series of reservoirs.
[edit] Watershed trails
Many nations of Native Americans lived near or along the Arkansas in its 1450 mile (2334 km) stretch, but the first Europeans to see the river were members of the Coronado expedition on June 29, 1541. Also in the 1540s Hernando de Soto discovered the junction of the Arkansas with the Mississippi. The name "Arkansas" was first applied by Father Jacques Marquette, who called the river Akansa in his journal of 1673.
From 1819 the Adams-Onís Treaty set the Arkansas as part of the frontier between the United States and Spanish Mexico, which it remained until the annexation of Texas and Mexican-American War in 1846.
Later, the Santa Fe Trail followed the Arkansas through much of Kansas except for the Cimarron Cutoff from Cimarron, Kansas to Cimarron, New Mexico via Cimarron County, Oklahoma.
[edit] Pronunciation
In contrast to the state Arkansas, which is always pronounced ARE-kan-saw, the river can be pronounced either ARE-kan-saw or are-KAN-zis, the latter most common in the state of Kansas.
[edit] See also
- Listing of rivers for each state: Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas
[edit] External links
