Red River

Red River
River
Crossing The Red River at the Texas-Oklahoma border from I-35
Country	United States of America
States	Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana
Part of	Mississippi River
Map of the Red River Watershed

This page is about the tributary of the Mississippi River; for the tributary of Lake Winnipeg, see the Red River of the North.

The Red River, or sometimes The Red River of the South, is a major tributary of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers located in the United States of America. The river gains its name from the red-clay farmland of its watershed. It is one of several rivers with that name. The Red River is the second largest river basin in the southern Great Plains.^[1] It rises in two branches (forks) in the Texas Panhandle and flows east, where it acts as the border between present-day states of Texas and Oklahoma. It is a short border between Texas and Arkansas before entering Arkansas, turning south near Fulton, Arkansas and flowing into Louisiana. The total length of the river is 1,360 miles (2,190 km).

Geography

Source

That southern fork, which is about 120 miles (190 km), is generally called the Prairie Dog Town Fork. It is formed in Randall County, Texas near the county seat of Canyon, by the confluence of intermittent Palo Duro Creek and Tierra Blanca Creek. (The names mean "Hard Wood" and "White Land", respectively, in Spanish.)

The Red River changed its course near Natchitoches, Louisiana, and left behind the scenic Cane River Lake.

The Red River flows east-southeast, through Palo Duro Canyon in Palo Duro Canyon State Park at an elevation of 1050 meters^[1], then past Newlin, Texas, to meet the Oklahoma state line. From there eastward, it is usually referred to as the Red River, even before meeting the north fork.

Tributaries

Tributaries include the Prairie Dog Town Fork Red River, Salt Fork Red River, North Fork Red River, Pease River, Wichita River, Little Wichita River, Loggy Bayou (through Lake Bistineau and Dorcheat Bayou)

Lower Red River

The Red River joins the Atchafalaya and Mississippi rivers at an elevation of 25m in eastern Louisiana.^[1]

Drainage area

The Red River drains 169,890 square kilometers of land.^[1] It covers parts of the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Outflow

The Red has a mean flow of over 7,000 ft³/s.

Watershed

The Red River drains 169,890 square kilometers of land.^[1]

History

Native Americans

Native American cultures along the river were diverse, developing specialized adaptations to the many different environments.^[1] By the time of European contact, the eastern piney woods were dominated by the numerous tribes of the Caddoan Confederacy. They found plentiful game and fish, and also had good land for cultivating staple crops.^[1] The middle part of the Red River was dominated by Wichita and Tonkawa. This area was prairie, where Native Americans constructed portable and temporary tepees for housing. They had limited farming and followed game in seasonal, nomadic hunting cycles.^[1] The Apache dominated the western Red River area until the 1700s, when they were displaced by invading Comanche from the north.^[1]

European-American exploration

In 1806 Zebulon Pike mounted an expedition to map the Red River, along with several other drainages such as the Arkansas River. He was captured by the Spanish shortly before striking the headwaters of the Red River.^[2] Randolph B. Marcy led an expedition several decades later to find the source of the Red River.

Great Raft

In the early 19th century, settlers found that much of the river's length in Louisiana was unnavigable because of a collection of fallen trees that formed a "Great Raft" over 160 miles (260 km) long. Captain Henry Miller Shreve began clearing the log jam in 1839. The log jam was not completely cleared until the 1870s, when dynamite became available. The river was thereafter navigable, but north of Natchitoches, it was restricted to small craft.

In the 20th century, the interest group known as the Red River Valley Association was formed to lobby the United States Congress to make the river fully navigable between Alexandria and Shreveport, Louisiana. Leading supporters of the longstanding project were Louisiana Democratic senators Allen J. Ellender, J. Bennett Johnston, Jr. and Russell B. Long, Louisiana's former Fourth District Congressman Joseph David "Joe D." Waggonner, Jr., and the late Shreveport Mayor Littleberry Calhoun Allen, Jr. With the completion of the project, a lock system constructed by the US Army Corps of Engineers (COE) now allows navigation of barge traffic as far north as Shreveport.

Greer County debate

Specialists debate whether North Fork or Prairie Dog Town Fork is the true stem.^[1] Because of a cartographic error, the land between the north and south forks was claimed by both the state of Texas and the federal government. Randolph Marcy's expedition followed Prairie Dog Town Fork in 1852.^[1] Originally called Greer County, Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it belonged to the United States, which at the time oversaw the Oklahoma Territory. That territory was later incorporated into the state of Oklahoma, whose southern border now follows the south fork. Today the southern Prairie Dog Town Fork is considered the main fork, even though the North Fork is as long and normally has a greater water flow.^[1]

Recreation

In 1943 Denison Dam was built on the Red River to form Lake Texoma, a large reservoir of 89,000 acres (360 km²), some 70 miles (110 km) north of Dallas. Other reservoirs on the river's tributaries serve as flood control.

See also

• List of Arkansas rivers
• List of Louisiana rivers
• List of Oklahoma rivers
• List of Texas rivers
• Red River Bridge War
• The Red River Shootout, the annual college football game between the University of Texas Longhorns and the University of Oklahoma Sooners.

References

• Tyson, Carl N. The Red River in Southwestern History. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1981. ISBN 0-8061-1659-5

External links

• Randolph Marcy, Exploration of the Red River, 1852, hosted by the Portal to Texas History
• Red River from the Handbook of Texas Online
• USGS GNIS: Red River

Geology

• Red River Valley - Engineering Geology Mapping Program PDF files of publications about and maps of the geology of the Red River Valley
• Autin, W. J., and C. E. Pearson, 1993, Quaternary Geology and Geoarchaeology of the Lower Red River Valley: Friends of the Pleistocene South Central Cell 11 th Annual Field Conference Alexandria, Louisiana March 26-28, 1993. Friends of the Pleistocene South Central Cell and Louisiana Geological Survey, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 183 p.

Coordinates: 31°1′10″N 91°44′52″W / 31.01944°N 91.74778°W / 31.01944; -91.74778