OPINION

OPINION | REX NELSON: Rolling on the river


By the end of November, commercial tonnage on the Arkansas River was up 2.7 percent from the same period in 2021. There were 10.124 million tons that moved through the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System. The Port of Little Rock handled 385 barges carrying more than 577,000 tons. That was up 22 percent from the same period in 2021.

Although wheat, soybean and fertilizer shipments were down from the previous year, iron and steel shipments were up 13 percent while sand, gravel and rock shipments were up 6 percent. Though extensive upgrades to the system are needed, the McClellan-Kerr is the gift that keeps on giving for Arkansas. The system stretches from the Arkansas' confluence with the Mississippi River to the Port of Catoosa near Tulsa. There are 18 locks and dams, 13 of which are in Arkansas.

In Saturday's column, I wrote about a Sunday afternoon spent watching barges on the river while attending a meeting at the Little Rock Port Authority offices. At that meeting, I was given a 1995 history of the system published by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and written by Arkansas historian Charles Bolton. It was interesting reading for someone who has long been fascinated by the Arkansas.

"A study completed in 1935 described the Arkansas River as it existed then and as it must have existed at least as long as human beings had lived along it," Bolton wrote. "Melting snow that ran off the Rocky Mountains near Leadville, Colo., flowed into a swift and cold stream that coursed rapidly down a mountain valley through the spectacular chasm known as Royal Gorge and on to Pueblo, Colo., 125 miles to the south and east.

"More slowly the river moved across the flatter terrain of eastern Colorado and Kansas, taking a turn to the north below Dodge City and then shifting south at Great Bend, where it ran through Wichita toward the Oklahoma line. Heading toward Tulsa, the Arkansas River began to erode its banks, which at this point were sandy, and meander into shorter and sharper bends. Tributaries such as the Salt Fork River and Cimarron River carried in significant amounts of sediment."

The fall of the river decreased from 110 feet per mile near its source in Colorado to just 2.5 feet per mile in Oklahoma.

"Below Tulsa the river continued to get larger and flatter," Bolton wrote. "In the vicinity of Muskogee, it was joined first by the Verdigris River and then the Grand River, both flowing in from the north. Later came the Illinois River, Canadian River and Poteau River. Between Fort Smith and Little Rock, the Petit Jean River and Fourche La Fave River emptied into the Arkansas."

The river flows 1,434 miles. The river basin is 870 miles long and averages 185 miles in width. It makes up 12.8 percent of the Mississippi River basin. The Arkansas' drainage basin even includes parts of New Mexico, Texas and Missouri in addition to states through which the river flows.

"Arkansas has a special relationship with the river that shares its name," Bolton wrote. "People along the 300 or so river miles between Fort Smith on the western border and the Mississippi River on the east had been ravaged by floods from a swollen Arkansas River, and they had benefited from its capacity to be an avenue of transportation. For thousands of years, humans have lived along the river in what's now the state of Arkansas.

"As early as 5,000 years ago, small bands of people appear to have sojourned there, hunting for the most part, gathering edible plants and leaving projectile points and other stone tools. About 2,500 years later, occupants of the valley were living more settled lives and probably learning to grow squash and other domestic foods that had been developed in Central America. Still, they consumed large amounts of deer meat and gathered wild food such as hickory nuts.

"During what archaeologists call the Woodland Period, cultural change became more rapid, probably because of the success of agriculture. Pottery, basketry and the bow and arrow were part of the new way of life. Woodland people also built earthen mounds and used river transportation for long-distance trade. One center of such activity was along Plum Bayou, a few miles below Little Rock."

When Spanish explorers led by Hernando de Soto arrived in 1541, they found mounds near the river that had been used during the Woodland Period.

"Native Americans lived in large palisaded towns in northeast Arkansas and in smaller groups in all the river valleys," Bolton wrote. "Prolonged contact between Europeans and native Americans was a disaster for the indigenous people. Diseases carried by the Spanish reduced the native population so drastically that the 75,000 people who probably lived in Arkansas when de Soto arrived had become only 15,000 by the time French explorers came more than a century later.

"When the Louisiana Purchase occurred in 1803, Arkansas Post, then located about 36 miles from the mouth of the river, was a center of trade, government and European culture, but it contained less than 500 people. The Arkansas River drained a land more empty than it had been in several thousand years. The repopulation of Arkansas by American settlers began slowly."

In 1820, there were about 14,000 settlers in the Arkansas Territory. Most had come down the Southwest Trail out of Missouri.

"The river floated a few dugout canoes, rafts, flatboats and keelboats in the first decades of the century, but it became an important avenue of commerce largely because of Robert Fulton's steamboat," Bolton wrote.


Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.


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