Everything about Red River Mississippi Watershed totally explained
» For other uses, see Red River.
The
Red River is one of
several rivers with that name. It rises in two branches (forks) in the
Texas Panhandle and flows east along the border of
Texas and
Oklahoma, and briefly between Texas and
Arkansas. At
Fulton, Arkansas, the
river turns south into
Louisiana to empty into the
Atchafalaya and
Mississippi Rivers. The total length of this journey is 1360
mi (2190
km). The river gains its name from the red-
clay farmland of its
watershed. Since
1943 the Red River has been
dammed by
Denison Dam to form
Lake Texoma, a large
reservoir of 89,000
acres (360
km²), some 70 mi (110 km) north of
Dallas. Other reservoirs serve as
flood control on the river's
tributaries. The Red is a large river, with a mean flow of over 7000 ft³/s.
Much of the river's length in
Louisiana was unnavigable in the early
19th century due to a collection of fallen
trees that formed a "
Great Raft" over 160 mi (260 km) long. Captain
Henry Miller Shreve cleared the
logjam in
1839. The river was thereafter navigable only for
small craft north of
Natchitoches.
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. 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. This project has been completed, and a lock system now allows navigation of
barge traffic as far north as
Shreveport.
Due to a
cartographic error, the land between the north and south forks was claimed by both the state of Texas and the
federal government. Originally called
Greer County, Texas, the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it belonged to the federal government, 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.
That southern fork, which is about 120 mi (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.) It flows east-southeast, through
Palo Duro Canyon in Palo Duro Canyon State Park, then past Newlin, Texas, to meet the Oklahoma state line. From there eastward, it's usually referred to as the Red River, even before meeting the north fork.
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