Arkansas River - Watershed trails, Pronunciation

River in SC USA; rises in the Rocky Mountains, Colorado; flows SE through Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas; joins the Mississippi S of Memphis; length 2330 km/1450 mi; major tributaries the Cimmaron, Canadian, Neosho, Verdigris; navigable for its length in Arkansas.

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. (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). 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.