Headwaters of the Arkansas

Done for a Kansas Newspaper near the Arkansas River: http://www.sumnernewscow.com/labor-day-feature-the-long-flowing-life-of-the-arkansas-river/

The Headwaters of the Arkansas River

The Arkansas River, just at the Eastern edge of Oxford in Sumner County, is a serious river in this area. Wide and deep and, according to my relatives when I was a child, quite dangerous. During visits to Oxford we children were always warned to stay away from it.

My earliest memories of the river are from when my cousin and I would sneak down to the river bank from the farm we stayed at just South of Oxford. Sneak down with a huge bag of pop bottles and a single shot 22. We would stop the end of the bottles with mud, toss them in the fast flowing river and then shoot them with the 22. Great fun and our parents would have skinned us alive had they known what we were doing.

My great dream in those days was to build a raft and float down the river to New Orleans. Huck Finn style.

The first mention of the river is found in the accounts of the Coronado Expedition of 1540 to 1541. The Expedition names the river “Saint Peter's and Saint Paul's River”. Next came Father Marquette and Louis Jolliet, the first Europeans to explore and map the upper portion of the Mississippi River. And the name “Saint Peter's and Saint Paul's River” still appears on the map of the upper Mississippi that Father Marquette produced in 1673.

But the name of the river was still in flux, and the Mexicans re-named it “Rio Napete”. And the the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819 designated the River as part of the border between the United States and Spanish Mexico. But this changed with the annexation of Texas and the Mexican American war of 1846.

It appears that the final name of the river, “The Arkansas”, arose when when a group of French explorers, sometime int the early 19^th Century, named the mouth of the river “Arkansa” after a tribe of Dakota or Osage Indians that lived nearby.

Later, in the mid to late 19^th Century, the Sante Fe Trail followed the banks of the Arkansas through much of Kansas.

In the 19^th Century, river boats of any consequence could usually not navigate the river beyond Fort Smith Arkansas. But light flat boats would come as far as Fort Mann near Dodge City. At least in the spring when the river ran high. 

Today the extensive locks and dams of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System now allows barge traffic from the mouth of the Mississippi to Muskogee Oklahoma.

The river begins a few miles West of Leadville Colorado, near Highway 91, about a thousand yards down from the top of the Continental Divide at Fremont Pass.

Picture 1 �" Fremont Pass Sign.

Picture 2 - Climax Mine at Fremont Pass.

Picture 3 �" Mt. Arkansas (Rt), Mt. Democrat (Lft) & Scenic valley where the river begins.

There are a series of bogs at the base of the valley formed by Mount Arkansas and Mount Democrat. Depending on the snow melt, these bogs feed a stream about one foot wide that flows about a half a mile to a pond on the Climax Mine property. This pond is the year round source of the river.

Picture 4 �" The Climax Pond

From here, the river travels down the divide as a stream about two feet wide.

Picture 5 �" The two foot stream.

About 4 miles down from the divide, the Arkansas River merges with English Creek, it's first real tributary.

Picture 6 - English Creek.

Picture 7 - English Creek, Another View. 

Picture 8 - The Arkansas River Just Prior to the Merger With English Creek.

The river then meanders along for a few more miles picking up more flow from meadow springs along the way. At about the ten mile mark it crosses under Highway 91 and has the first sign identifying it.

Picture 9 - The Arkansas River is Identified at About the Ten Mile Mark

Picture 10 - Another View at the Ten Mile Mark

Past Leadville, the stream is now ten to fifteen feet wide and it is becoming difficult to wade. The stream gets if's first big blast of growth about 15 miles further on at Twin Lakes, where the Lake Creek, a significant mountain stream that feeds the two lakes, joins with the Arkansas and the Arkansas becomes an actual river. River rafting is done on the Arkansas at this point.

Picture 11 �" Lake Creek at It's Junction With the Arkansas

Picture 12 - The Arkansas After the Merger With Lake Creek

The river then moves on through Southern Colorado, through the Royal Gorge Canyon and finally out onto the plains.

On the average, the Arkansas is smaller than it was in the past as so much water is now taken from it for irrigation along the way from Colorado. But it remains a significant feature in Sumner County.

Reviews

[barleygirl]

I do not see pictures here & I have a similar issue when posting . . . can't do the embedding thing on this website myself. But that doesn't detract from enjoying your story, since you pack it with details of interest & a storyline we can imagine in our mind's eye. I'm not enthralled by historical details like "how & why was this river named" . . . so I'm glad you explain a nicely brief amount . . . and then get back to your more dynamic storytelling style (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[Miss Fedelm]

You can see the pictures in the actual article. Here is the link:

http://www.sumnernewscow.com/labor-day-feature-the-long-flowing-life-of-the-arkansas-river/

[barleygirl]

Thank you for prodding me to go check out the entire article, becuz it's well worth the time! This is very interesting, great photos, & I love looking at a river like a living thing, as you've done. I love the map to show how far it goes . . . many of us think the Mississippi is the only river going so far in the USA. I rode my bike across the USA at age 32 & I was going along this river for part of the way *smile*