54-629: The 11th Street Bridge was completed in December 1915 to carry vehicles across the Arkansas River at Tulsa, Oklahoma . Used from 1916 to 1972, it was also a part of U.S. Route 66 . Functionally, it has been replaced by the I-244 bridges across the Arkansas. As of 2009, the bridge was in poor structural condition and unsafe even for pedestrians. In 2008, the gates were locked to exclude all visitors. This bridge
108-440: A cataract into another becomes the upper fork, and the one it descends into, the lower ; or by relative volume: the smaller stream designated the little fork, the larger either retaining its name unmodified, or receives the designation big . Tributaries are sometimes listed starting with those nearest to the source of the river and ending with those nearest to the mouth of the river . The Strahler stream order examines
162-464: A lake . A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean . Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they flow, drain the surrounding drainage basin of its surface water and groundwater , leading the water out into an ocean. The Irtysh is a chief tributary of the Ob river and is also the longest tributary river in the world with a length of 4,248 km (2,640 mi). The Madeira River
216-406: A West Fork as well (now filled in). Forks are sometimes designated as right or left. Here, the handedness is from the point of view of an observer facing upstream. For instance, Steer Creek has a left tributary which is called Right Fork Steer Creek. These naming conventions are reflective of the circumstances of a particular river's identification and charting: people living along the banks of
270-455: A bronze sculpture, created by artist Robert Summers titled "East Meets West". The sculpture is 14 feet (4.3 m) long, 18 feet (5.5 m) wide and 14 feet (4.3 m) high. The sculpture depicts the Avery family riding west in a Model T Ford auto meeting an eastbound horse-drawn carriage. It weighs over 20,000 pounds (9,100 kg) and cost about $ 1.178 million. In 2020, Avery Plaza Southwest
324-414: A forking of the stream to the right and to the left, which then appear on their charts as such; or the streams are seen to diverge by the cardinal direction (north, south, east, or west) in which they proceed upstream, sometimes a third stream entering between two others is designated the middle fork; or the streams are distinguished by the relative height of one to the other, as one stream descending over
378-439: A river, with a name known to them, may then float down the river in exploration, and each tributary joining it as they pass by appears as a new river, to be given its own name, perhaps one already known to the people who live upon its banks. Conversely, explorers approaching a new land from the sea encounter its rivers at their mouths, where they name them on their charts, then, following a river upstream, encounter each tributary as
432-474: A second arched bridge immediately downstream and connected both bridges with a single deck. This brought the deck width to 52 feet 8 inches, with a roadbed that was 40 feet (12 m) wide and accommodated four lanes of traffic. Completion of the I-244 bridges in 1967 removed most vehicular traffic from the 11th street bridge. In 1980, it was closed to traffic, although it remained open to pedestrians. In 1996, it
486-631: A series of dams and large reservoir lakes have been built on the Arkansas and its intersecting tributaries, including the Canadian , Verdigris , Neosho (Grand) , Illinois , and Poteau rivers. These locks and dams enable the river to be navigable by barges and large river craft downriver of Muskogee, Oklahoma , where the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System joins the Verdigris River. Into western Arkansas ,
540-698: A site in the Tensas Basin , show that part of the river's meander belt flowed through up to 3200 BCE. While it was previously thought that this relict channel was active at the same time as another relict of the Mississippi River 's meander belt, it has been shown that this channel of the Arkansas was inactive approximately 400 years before the Mississippi channel was active. The Arkansas has three distinct sections in its long path through central North America. At its headwaters beginning near Leadville , Colorado ,
594-602: Is a major tributary of the Mississippi River . It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado , Kansas , Oklahoma , and Arkansas . The river's source basin lies in Colorado, specifically the Arkansas River Valley. The headwaters derive from the snowpack in the Sawatch and Mosquito mountain ranges. It flows east into Kansas and finally through Oklahoma and Arkansas, where it meets
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#1732872097261648-539: Is located adjacent to the east entrance of the historic Bridge in Tulsa, at the intersection of Southwest Boulevard and Riverside Drive. The first phase of the plaza included a display of flags of the eight states which were served by U.S Route 66. It was completed in July 2008 and dedicated on August 7, 2008. A skyway with an observation deck leads pedestrians from the visitors' parking lot across Southwest Boulevard. The plaza features
702-545: Is scheduled for 2013. Extreme care has been used during the demolition to avoid vibrations that might further damage the old 11th Street Bridge. The ability to utilize the existing bridge, rather than having to build another one over the Arkansas, was said to be the major reason U.S. Route 66 was built through Tulsa. In commemoration of the Route and the man who helped bring it about, the Cyrus Avery Centennial Plaza
756-632: Is scheduled to open, at the west end of the Bridge. Plans include replicas of three neon signs from Tulsa-area motels from the era, being the Will Rogers Motor Court. Tulsa Auto Court, and the Oil Capital Motel. A museum to educate visitors about the significance of Route 66 has been proposed. It would be built on a hill adjacent to the existing parking lot. No date has been established for this project. Arkansas River The Arkansas River
810-533: Is the largest tributary river by volume in the world with an average discharge of 31,200 m /s (1.1 million cu ft/s). A confluence , where two or more bodies of water meet, usually refers to the joining of tributaries. The opposite to a tributary is a distributary , a river or stream that branches off from and flows away from the main stream. Distributaries are most often found in river deltas . Right tributary , or right-bank tributary , and left tributary , or left-bank tributary , describe
864-534: The Mississippi River from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin toward the Gulf of Mexico, but turned back at the mouth of the Arkansas River. By that time, they had encountered Native Americans carrying European trinkets and feared confrontation with Spanish conquistadors. Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe , a French trader, explorer, and nobleman had led an expedition into what is now Oklahoma in 1718–19. His original objective
918-417: The Mississippi River near Napoleon, Arkansas . Water flow in the Arkansas River (as measured in central Kansas ) has dropped from approximately 248 cubic feet per second (7.0 m /s) average from 1944–1963 to 53 cubic feet per second (1.5 m /s) average from 1984–2003, largely because of the pumping of groundwater for irrigation in eastern Colorado and western Kansas . Important cities along
972-526: The Santa Fe Trail followed the Arkansas through much of Kansas, picking it up near Great Bend and continuing through to La Junta, Colorado . Some users elected to take the challenging Cimarron Cutoff starting at Cimarron, Kansas . During the American Civil War, each side tried to prevent the other from using the Arkansas River and its tributaries as a route for moving reinforcements. Initially,
1026-599: The Tulsa Port of Catoosa on the Verdigris River , enters the Arkansas River near Muskogee, and runs via an extensive lock and dam system to the Mississippi River. Through Oklahoma and Arkansas, dams which artificially deepen and widen the river to sustain commercial barge traffic and recreational use give the river the appearance of a series of reservoirs. The McClellan–Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System diverts from
1080-521: The U.S.–Mexico border from the Adams–Onís Treaty (in force 1821) until the Texas Annexation or Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo . The river is alternatively pronounced / ɑːr ˈ k æ n z ə s / ar- KAN -zəs or / ˈ ɑːr k ən s ɔː / AR -kən-saw . The path of the Arkansas River has changed over time. Sediments from the river found in a palaeochannel next to Nolan,
1134-582: The Arkansas River 2.5 mi (4.0 km) upstream of the Wilbur D. Mills Dam to avoid the long winding route which the lower Arkansas River follows. This circuitous portion of the Arkansas River between the Wilbur D. Mills Dam and the Mississippi River was historically bypassed by river vessels. Early steamboats instead followed a network of rivers—known as the Arkansas Post Canal—;which flowed north of
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#17328720972611188-562: The Arkansas River as a supply route. In September 1864, a body of Confederate irregulars led by General Stand Watie (Cherokee) successfully ambushed a Union supply ship bound for Fort Gibson. The vessel was destroyed, and a part of its cargo was looted by the Confederates. By 1890, water from the Arkansas River was being used to irrigate more than 20,000 acres (8,100 ha) of farmland in Kansas. By 1910, irrigation projects in Colorado had caused
1242-532: The Arkansas River for thousands of years. The first Europeans to see the river were members of the Spanish Coronado expedition on June 29, 1541. Also in the 1540s, Hernando de Soto discovered the junction of the Arkansas with the Mississippi. The Spanish originally called the river Napeste . "The name "Arkansas" was first applied by French Father Jacques Marquette , who called the river Akansa in his journal of 1673. The Joliet-Marquette expedition travelled
1296-486: The Arkansas River in central Colorado have been known for exceptional trout fishing, particularly fly fishing , since the 19th century, when greenback cutthroat trout dominated the river. Today, brown trout dominate the river, which also contains rainbow trout . Trout Unlimited considers the Arkansas one of the top 100 trout streams in America, a reputation the river has had since the 1950s. From Leadville to Pueblo,
1350-425: The Arkansas River include Canon City , Pueblo , La Junta , and Lamar, Colorado ; Garden City , Dodge City , Hutchinson , and Wichita, Kansas ; Tulsa, Oklahoma ; and Fort Smith and Little Rock, Arkansas . The May 2002 I-40 bridge disaster took place on I-40 's crossing of Kerr Reservoir on the Arkansas River near Webbers Falls, Oklahoma . Since 1902, Kansas has claimed that Colorado takes too much of
1404-524: The Arkansas River is serviced by numerous fly shops and guides operating in Buena Vista, Salida, Cañon City, and Pueblo. Colorado Parks and Wildlife provides regular online fishing reports for the river. A fish kill occurred on December 29, 2010, in which an estimated 100,000 freshwater drum lined the Arkansas River bank . An investigation, conducted by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, found
1458-650: The Arkansas River, reaching a place called Arkansas Post , about 60 miles (97 km) above the confluence of the Arkansas and the Mississippi rivers. In mid-April 1822, the Robert Thompson , towing a keelboat, was the first steamboat to navigate the Arkansas as far as Fort Smith. For five years, Fort Smith was known as the head of navigation for steamboats on the river. It lost the title to Fort Gibson in April 1832, when three steamboats, Velocipede , Scioto, and Catawba , all arrived at Fort Gibson later that month. Later,
1512-528: The Arkansas runs as a steep fast-flowing mountain river through the Rockies in its narrow valley, dropping 4,600 feet (1,400 m) in 120 miles (190 km). This section supports extensive whitewater rafting , including The Numbers (near Granite, Colorado ), Brown's Canyon , and the Royal Gorge . At Cañon City, Colorado , the Arkansas River valley widens and flattens markedly. Just west of Pueblo, Colorado ,
1566-471: The Arkansas. These included flatboats ( bateaus ) and keelboats . Along with the pirogues, they transported piles of deer, bear, otter, beaver, and buffalo skins up and down the river. Agricultural products such as corn, rice, dried peaches, beans, peanuts, snakeroot, sarsaparilla, and ginseng had grown in economic importance. On March 31, 1820, the Comet became the first steamboat to successfully navigate part of
1620-503: The City of Tulsa. There are holes in the deck, the pavement has buckled in many places, and weeds grow in the cracks. The gates were locked in 2008. Although it was considered as the centerpiece of a Route 66 exhibit, engineers estimated that it would cost $ 15 million just to be made safe for pedestrians. The conclusion was that the historic structure is "... too expensive to repair, too historic to demolish, and too valuable to ignore". Ironically,
1674-459: The I-244 bridges have already reached the end of their service lives. The westbound bridge was closed and demolition begun in May 2011. Demolition was 85 percent complete as of August 1, 2011. The demolished structure will be replaced by a double-deck, multimodal span. The top deck will carry vehicles and the lower deck will have a pedestrian way and two railroad tracks (to be added in the future). Completion
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1728-692: The Mississippi River. At 1,469 miles (2,364 km), it is the sixth-longest river in the United States , the second-longest tributary in the Mississippi– Missouri system, and the 47th longest river in the world . Its origin is in the Rocky Mountains in Lake County, Colorado , near Leadville . In 1859, placer gold discovered in the Leadville area brought thousands seeking to strike it rich, but
1782-638: The Union Army abandoned its forts in the Indian Territory, including Fort Gibson and Fort Smith, to maximize its strength for campaigns elsewhere. The Confederate Army sent troops from Texas to support its Native American allies. Union troops returned to the area later in the war, after defeating the Confederates at the Battle of Pea Ridge and the Battle of Fort Smith . They began recovering the position it had previously abandoned, most notably Fort Gibson and reopened
1836-676: The United States annexed Texas after the Mexican–American War , in 1846. The treaty was made shortly after the "Old Settler" Cherokee were pushed out of Texas and moved near what became known as Webbers Falls on the Arkansas River. They planned to reunite with the Cherokee who had moved there on the Trail of Tears in 1839. That area, then part of Arkansas Territory , would become Indian Territory and later Oklahoma . This area had long been
1890-488: The areas around the Great Lakes began exploring the Mississippi and some of its northern tributaries. They soon learned that the birchbark canoes, which had served them so well on the northern waterways, were too light for use on southern rivers such as the Arkansas. They turned to making and using dugout canoes, which they called pirogues , made by hollowing out the trunks of cottonwood trees. Cottonwoods are plentiful along
1944-407: The arrangement of tributaries in a hierarchy of first, second, third and higher orders, with the first-order tributary being typically the least in size. For example, a second-order tributary would be the result of two or more first-order tributaries combining to form the second-order tributary. Another method is to list tributaries from mouth to source, in the form of a tree structure , stored as
1998-598: The compact did not stop further disputes by the two states over water rights to the river. The Kansas–Oklahoma Arkansas River Basin Compact was created in 1965 to promote mutual consideration and equity over water use in the basin shared by those states. The Kansas–Oklahoma Arkansas River Commission was established, charged with administering the compact and reducing pollution. The compact was approved and implemented by both states in 1970 and has been in force since then. The McClellan–Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System begins at
2052-543: The dead fish "... cover 17 miles [27 km] of the river from the Ozark Lock and Dam downstream to River Mile 240, directly south of Hartman, Arkansas ." Tests later indicated the likely cause of the kill was gas bubble trauma caused by opening the spillways on the Ozark Dam. Tributary A tributary , or an affluent , is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream ( main stem or "parent" ), river, or
2106-463: The easily recovered placer gold was quickly exhausted. The Arkansas River's mouth is at Napoleon, Arkansas , and its drainage basin covers nearly 170,000 square miles (440,000 km ). Its volume is much smaller than the Missouri and Ohio rivers, with a mean discharge of about 40,000 cubic feet per second (1,100 m /s). The Arkansas from its headwaters to the 100th meridian west formed part of
2160-571: The lower Arkansas River and followed a shorter and more direct route to the Mississippi River. When the McClellan–Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System was constructed between 1963 and 1970, the Arkansas Post Canal was significantly improved, while the lower Arkansas River continued to be bypassed by commercial vessels. Many nations of Native Americans lived near, or along, the 1,450-mile (2,334-km) stretch of
2214-637: The midpoint. In the United States, where tributaries sometimes have the same name as the river into which they feed, they are called forks . These are typically designated by compass direction. For example, the American River in California receives flow from its North, Middle, and South forks. The Chicago River 's North Branch has the East, West, and Middle Fork; the South Branch has its South Fork, and used to have
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2268-428: The orientation of the tributary relative to the flow of the main stem river. These terms are defined from the perspective of looking downstream, that is, facing the direction the water current of the main stem is going. In a navigational context, if one were floating on a raft or other vessel in the main stream, this would be the side the tributary enters from as one floats past; alternately, if one were floating down
2322-599: The river enters the Great Plains . Through the rest of Colorado , Kansas , and much of Oklahoma , it is a typical Great Plains riverway, with wide, shallow banks subject to seasonal flooding and periods of dwindling flow. Tributaries include the Cimarron and the Salt Fork Arkansas rivers. In eastern Oklahoma, the river begins to widen further into a more contained consistent channel. To maintain more reliable flow rates,
2376-446: The river path works between the encroaching Boston and Ouachita mountains, including many isolated, flat-topped mesas, buttes, or monadnocks such as Mount Nebo , Petit Jean Mountain , and Mount Magazine , the highest point in the state. The river valley expands as it encounters much flatter land beginning just west of Little Rock, Arkansas . It continues eastward across the plains and forests of eastern Arkansas until it flows into
2430-541: The river to stop flowing in July and August. Flooding in 1927 severely damaged or destroyed nearly every levee downstream of Fort Smith, and led to the development of the Arkansas River Flood Control Association. It also resulted in the Federal government assigning responsibility for flood control and navigation on the Arkansas River to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACOE). The headwaters of
2484-471: The river's water; it has filed numerous lawsuits over this issue in the U.S. Supreme Court that continue to this day, generally under the name of Kansas v. Colorado . The problems over the possession and use of Arkansas River water by Colorado and Kansas led to the creation of an interstate compact or agreement between the two states. While Congress approved the Arkansas River Compact in 1949,
2538-518: The strangers a warm welcome. La Harpe's party was honored with the calumet ceremony and spent ten days at this location. In 1988, evidence of a native village was discovered along the Arkansas River 13 miles (21 km) south of present-day Tulsa, Oklahoma . By then, the site was known as the Lasley Vore Site . French traders and trappers who had opened up trade with Indian tribes in Canada and
2592-512: The streams of the southwest and grow to large sizes. The wood is soft and easily worked with the crude tools carried by both the French and Indians. The pirogues were sturdier and could be more useful for navigating the sandbars and snags of the Southern waterways. In 1819, the Adams–Onís Treaty set the Arkansas as part of the frontier between the United States and Spanish Mexico . This continued until
2646-526: The traditional territory of the Osage . They resisted the new Native Americans moving in with armed conflict. The US encouraged a peace treaty made in 1828 but the territory issue was still unresolved by the time thousands of additional Cherokee refugees moved to the area during the Trail of Tears . By the time Fort Smith was established in 1817, larger capacity watercraft became available to transport goods up and down
2700-472: The tributary, the main stream meets it on the opposite bank of the tributary. This information may be used to avoid turbulent water by moving towards the opposite bank before approaching the confluence. An early tributary is a tributary that joins the main stem river closer to its source than its mouth, that is, before the river's midpoint ; a late tributary joins the main stem further downstream, closer to its mouth than to its source, that is, after
2754-684: Was added on December 13, 1996, to the National Register of Historic Places under Criteria A and C. Its NRIS number is 96001488. Its listing was consistent with evaluations of historic resources on Route 66 in Oklahoma completed in 1994 and 2003 studies. It was named the "Cyrus Avery Route 66 Memorial Bridge" in 2004. Although the bridge still stands, it is considered unsafe for use and has been closed to vehicles since 1980 and to pedestrians since 2008. Engineered by Harrington, Howard and Ash of Kansas City, this bridge replaced an earlier wooden structure. It
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#17328720972612808-542: Was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2004, the City of Tulsa, Oklahoma , formally renamed the Eleventh Street Bridge (which carried US 66 over the Arkansas River ), the Cyrus Avery Route 66 Memorial Bridge in honor of the man who vigorously promoted the creation of Route 66. Time has not been good to the old bridge, and it has been rated as "quite dangerous" and unsafe for pedestrians by
2862-533: Was built by the Missouri Valley Bridge and Iron Company for $ 180,000. A multi-span concrete arch bridge, with 18 spans, it was 1,470 feet (450 m) long and 34 feet (10 m) wide. It had a railroad track in the center and one vehicular lane on each side of the track. At the time, it was notable for several reasons: In 1929, the original balustrades and Victorian-style lights were replaced with Art Deco guardrails and lights. A 1934 project constructed
2916-458: Was to establish a trading post near the present city of Texarkana, Arkansas , but he extended his trip overland as far north as the Arkansas River (which he designated as the Alcansas ). The explorer wrote that he and nine other men, including three Caddo guides and 22 horses loaded with trade goods, had come to a native settlement overlooking the river, where there were about 6,000 natives, who gave
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