By David Dary

For The Transcript

There are 29 rivers in Oklahoma, each with a name. If you add the recent renaming of the North Canadian River in Oklahoma City to the Oklahoma River, you have 30 named rivers in the state.

In addition to the Oklahoma River, you have the Arkansas, Beaver, Blue, Canadian, Caney, Chikaskia, Cimarron, Deep Fork, Elm Fork of the Red, Elk, Glover, Grand River (the lower course of the Neosho), Illinois, James Fork, Little River (tributary of the Canadian), Little River (tributary of the Red), Kiamichi, Medicine Lodge, Mountain Fork, Neosho, North Canadian, Poteau, Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red, the Red, Salt Fork of the Arkansas, Salt Fork of the Red, Spring, Verdigris and Washita.

Each river in Oklahoma has a story behind its name. Some stories are more interesting than others, but all of the rivers in Oklahoma have played important roles in the state’s history.

The Arkansas River is a principal river in Oklahoma. All rivers in the state except those in the southern portion that are drained by the Red River flow into the Arkansas. It flows into the Mississippi River.

From before the arrival of the first Europeans the Arkansas River was used as a major avenue of commerce. Indians traversed the river and its tributaries in a variety of boats carrying trading goods or going to hunting grounds.

Early French explorers gave it the name Arkansas from the Quapaw Indian word Akansea taken from the Siouan word Ak-a-ko-ze. which in English means “South Wind People.”

The Red River rises in two branches or forks in the Texas Panhandle and flows east between Oklahoma and Texas. The Red River got its name from the red-clay farmland along the river’s course. From the 100th meridian, the western border of Oklahoma below the panhandle, the south bank of the river is the boundary between Texas and Oklahoma until it flows into Arkansas.

Spanish explorers were the first Europeans to discover the Red River in the 16th century. French explorers later found the river. After the steamboat was invented, Capt. Henry Miller Shreve brought the first steamboat into the Red River in 1815. It was named the Enterprise. Shreveport, Louisiana, is named for Capt. Shreve.

Steamboat pioneers Robert Fulton and his partner Robert R. Livingston claimed the sole right to navigate western waters. They sued Shreve. A federal court in New Orleans turned down their claim saying it was illegal. Congress then passed laws releasing every river, lake and harbor in the United States from the interference of monopolies.

Travel by steamboat on the Red River soon became commonplace. Floods, however, often created rafts – trees lodged together choking the channel – that sometimes closed river travel.

During the early 19th century, the most important boat landing on the Red River in Indian Territory was at Fort Towson in the Choctaw Nation about six miles from Doaksville.

In 1852, Randolph B. Marcy took an expedition and explored the headwaters of the Red River. He also explored the source of the Canadian River.

The Canadian River is another principal river in Oklahoma. It begins in Colorado and travels through New Mexico, the Texas Panhandle and most of Oklahoma. The Canadian is sometimes referred to as the South Canadian River to differentiate it from the North Canadian River that flows into it.

The origin of the name Canadian is still debated. One Oklahoma historian wrote in 1929 that the river was named about 1820 by French traders who met a group of French Canadian trappers camped on its banks near where it flows into the Arkansas River in what is now eastern Oklahoma.

Another authority says the river probably got its name from the Spanish word canada meaning canyon. The Canadian River does form a steeper canyon in northern New Mexico and a somewhat broad canyon in Texas. This explanation has been found in a few historical documents.

A portion of the North Canadian River was more recently renamed the Oklahoma River in Oklahoma County. That segment has been transformed into a series of river lakes with landscaped areas, trails and recreational facilities on the banks.

One Oklahoma lawmaker who called for the name change said the river’s name should promote Oklahoma, not Canada.

The Oklahoma River, at least in Oklahoma County, is the only river named for the state. There is, however, the scenic Illinois River in northeastern Oklahoma.

So far, no one has suggested renaming it or the Caney River, which begins in southern Kansas and flows into Oklahoma. It got its name from Caney, Kansas.

There is the Poteau River that flows north for its entire course through the Quachita Uplands of eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas. It apparently got its name because early French explorers had to use posts or poles to navigate upstream.

Poteau, Oklahoma, took it name from the river.

Stories about the rivers of Oklahoma would fill a large book. The streams were the life blood of early Oklahoma and remain important today.