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Red River |
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| The Red River is in the Mississippi drainage basin
and is one of two Red Rivers in the nation. It is the second longest
river associated with Texas. Its name comes from its color, which in
turn comes from the fact that the river carries large quantities of red
soil in flood periods. The river has a high salt content. The Spanish
called the stream Río Rojo, among other names. It was also known in
frontier times as the Red River of Natchitoches and the Red River of the
Cadodacho (the Caddo Indians). Randolph B. Marcy and George B. McClellan
identified the
Prairie Dog Town Fork as the river's main stream in 1852.
If one accepts their judgment the total length of the Red River is 1,360
miles, of which 640 miles is in Texas or along the Texas boundary. The
drainage area of the river in Texas is 30,700 square miles. In 1944
Denison Dam was completed on the Red River to form Lake Texoma, which
extends into Grayson and
Cooke counties, Texas, and Marshall, Johnson,
Bryan, and Love counties, Oklahoma, and was once the tenth-largest
reservoir in the United States. Principal tributaries of the Red River,
exclusive of its various forks, include the Pease and Wichita rivers in
north central Texas, the Sulphur River in Northeast Texas, and, from
Oklahoma, the Washita. The Ouachita is the main tributary in its lower
course. |
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| The Red River of Texas heads in four
main branches: the Prairie Dog Town Fork, Elm Creek or the
Elm Fork, the North Fork, and the Salt Fork. Water from the
river's source in Curry County, New Mexico, forms a channel,
Palo Duro Creek, in
Deaf Smith County, Texas, which joins
Tierra Blanca Creek northwest of Canyon to form the Prairie
Dog Town Fork of the Red River. This main channel flows east
through Palo Duro Canyon, then across the rest of the
Panhandle. The Prairie Dog Town Fork forms Palo Duro Club
Lake and Lake Tanglewood in
Randall County before it crosses
southwestern
Armstrong and northeastern
Briscoe counties.
Out of the canyon and into broken country, it flows eastward
across central
Hall and
Childress counties for 160 miles.
When the Prairie Dog Town Fork crosses the 100th meridian at
the eastern line of Childress County, its south bank becomes
the state boundary between Texas and Oklahoma and thus the
northern county line of
Hardeman and
Wilbarger counties.
Twelve miles northeast of Vernon the North Fork joins the
Prairie Dog Town Fork to form the Red River proper. Elm
Creek, or the Elm Fork of the Red River, rises in northern
Collingsworth County and drains into the North Fork of the
Red River near the Greer-Kiowa county line in Oklahoma south
of Altus Reservoir. The Salt Fork rises in north central
Armstrong County, crosses part of Oklahoma, and joins the
Prairie Dog Town Fork at the extreme northern point of
Wilbarger County, Texas, sixteen miles northwest of Vernon.
At this junction an ancient buffalo trail and the Western
Trail once crossed the stream. Below the junction of the
North Fork and the Prairie Dog Town Fork, the Red River
proper continues to mark with its south bank the state line
between Texas and Oklahoma and thus forms the northern
county line of Wilbarger,
Wichita,
Clay,
Montague,
Cooke,
Grayson,
Fannin,
Lamar, Red River, and
Bowie counties. The
river becomes the state line between Texas and Arkansas at
the northeastern corner of Texas. Afterward, it leaves Texas
and enters Arkansas, then continues eastward, forming the
northern boundary of Miller County, before turning
south-southeast to form the eastern boundary of the county.
It then flows southeast across Louisiana. It forms the line
between Caddo and Bossier parishes and then proceeds
southeast across Red River and Natchitoches parishes, forms
portions of the lines between Natchitoches and Grant and
Grant and Rapides parishes, crosses northeastern Rapides and
northwestern Avoyelles parishes, forms parts of the lines
between Avoyelles and Catahoula, Avoyelles and Concordia,
and Concordia and Pointe Coupe parishes, and finally reaches
its mouth on the Mississippi River forty-five miles
northwest of Baton Rouge and 341 miles above the
Gulf of
Mexico. Though the river once emptied completely into the
Mississippi, more recently a part of its water at flood
stage flows to the Gulf via the Atchafalaya. |
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| In the summer of 1541 the Coronado
expedition explored the upper reaches of the Prairie Dog
Town Fork in Palo Duro and Tule canyons. In the summer of
1542 the Moscoso expedition crossed the Red River in
Louisiana on its way into East Texas. In 1690 Domingo Terán
de los Ríos crossed Texas from southwest to northeast and
reached the Red River, possibly as far down as the great
raft and the Caddo Indian settlements in the area of present
Texarkana. French traders used the river as an approach to
establish a lucrative trade with the Caddos and associated
tribes by the early eighteenth century. Farther up the river
the Taovaya Indians had villages near the site of Spanish
Fort in what is now Montague County, villages that in the
middle eighteenth century were under French influence and
flew a French flag. Diego Ortiz Parrilla, in charge of a
Spanish punitive expedition, was defeated at the villages in
1759. In 1769 Athanase de Mézières was appointed lieutenant
governor of the Natchitoches District with jurisdiction over
the Red River valley. He was to suppress the traffic in
stolen horses and Indian captives centered in the Taovaya
villages, whose inhabitants by 1772 were trading with
Englishmen from the east and Comanches on the High Plains.
In 1778 Mézières visited the Red River villages and proposed
a Tlascalan Indian settlement among them. Neither this
proposal nor a suggestion in 1792 that a Spanish mission be
built on the Red River was carried out. In 1841 the Texan
Santa Fe expedition mistook the Wichita River for the Red
River. In 1852 Randolph Barnes Marcy commanded an exploring
expedition to the headwaters of the Canadian and the Red
rivers, and a year later published a report on the trip,
Exploration of the Red River of Louisiana in the Year 1852.
The Red River War of 1874–75 ended Indian hostilities in the
area. |
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| The Red River has been a boundary almost
since the first Europeans came to the area. In the 1700s the
river was generally regarded as the dividing line between
France and Spain, and a royal cedula in 1805 proclaimed the
river the northern and eastern boundary of the Spanish
province of Texas. After the Louisiana Purchase by the
United States, several expeditions were sent up the Red
River to explore that tributary of the Mississippi, and a
struggle began between the United States and Spain over
where the boundary should be. In 1804–05 William Dunbar
explored the river as far up as the mouth of the Washita. In
1805 Dr. John Sibley supplied the United States with a
detailed description of the area up the river and westward
as far as Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Red River was again
formally set forth as the northern boundary of Texas in the
Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819. This treaty, as ratified by Spain
and the United States in 1821 and by Mexico in 1822,
established the Red River as the southwestern boundary of
Louisiana-as far northwest as the 100th meridian, "as laid
down on the Melish Map." Illegal infiltration continued
across the river into Texas until the opening of
Anglo-American colonization in 1821, when the river became
the thoroughfare by which many pioneer settlers moved into
Texas. Others came down the military road to Fort Towson and
crossed the river at Jonesborough and Pecan Point. Many
settlers along the river raised cotton in the rich blackland
of Northeast Texas, despite its tendency to overflow, and
the Red River County area was sufficiently settled to send
delegates to the Convention of 1836. |
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| The Republic of Texas recognized the Red
River as a boundary when, in an act of December 19, 1836,
Congress made the eastern boundary coterminous with the
western boundary of the United States, as fixed by the
treaty of 1819. The area between the true 100th meridian and
the 100th meridian according to the Melish Map extended from
the Red River north to 36°30" latitude and was more than 100
miles in width, embracing an area of 16,000 square miles.
According to strict construction of the treaty of 1819, this
strip belonged to Texas. The Supreme Court of the United
States, however, on March 16, 1896, held that Texas was
stopped from claiming this strip, for the following reasons:
(1) In the Compromise of 1850, wherein Texas ceded all
territory north of 36°30" latitude and west of the 100th
meridian, Texas had agreed to the true meridian and not the
Melish meridian. (2) The true 100th meridian had been made
the eastern boundary of Lipscomb, Hemphill, and Wheeler
counties when they were legally formed. (3) The true 100th
meridian as ascertained had been acquiesced in, recognized,
and treated as the true boundary by various acts of Texas,
and both governments had treated it as the proper boundary
in the disposition they made of the territory involved. The
view was virtually conceded as to all the strip, except for
3,840 square miles east of the true 100th meridian and
between the forks of the Red River. The United States
contended that the line following the course of the Red
River eastward to the 100th meridian met the meridian at the
point where it intersected the lower fork of the Red River;
Texas contended that her boundaries extended along the Red
River to the point where the upper fork intersected the
100th meridian. In other words, the question was which was
the main fork of the Red River. The Supreme Court held that
the disputed territory belonged to the United States. The
decision, known as the Greer County case, resulted in the
loss from Texas to what is now Oklahoma of 1,511,576 acres.
A quarter of a century later another argument between Texas
and Oklahoma occurred when oil was discovered in the bed of
the river. With the extension of the Burkburnett Townsite
pool, known as the Northwest Extension, it was discovered
that a part of the pool lay in the bed of the Red River.
This brought up the old question of Indian headright titles
and caused a controversy that reached the Supreme Court and
resulted in fixing the boundary of Texas at the bluff on the
Texas side. Militia of both Texas and Oklahoma, together
with the Texas Rangers, engaged in several battles. The
bridge was burned, oilfield equipment destroyed, and
property confiscated. |
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| The Red River has been significant also
in commerce and transportation. Though its variable current
and quicksands menaced settlers, gateways into Texas were
established at Pecan Point and Jonesborough in Red River
County, Colbert's Ferry and Preston in Grayson County, and
Doan's Crossing in Wilbarger County. Indian trading posts on
the river became the termini of important trails. In 1836
Holland Coffee had a post on the Oklahoma side at the mouth
of Cache Creek; in 1837 he settled at Preston Bend in what
is now northern Grayson County, Texas. Abel Warren had a
post in northwestern Fannin County in 1836, one on the
Oklahoma side of the river near the mouth of Walnut Creek in
1837, and a later post at the mouth of Cache Creek. The
Central National Road of the Republic of Texas was surveyed
to reach the Red River six miles above Jonesborough at
Travis G. Wright's landing, then the head of navigation on
the Red River. In 1853 Colbert's Ferry was opened across the
river in northern Grayson County for the route that was
subsequently used by the Butterfield Overland Mail, the
partial direction of which had been determined by Randolph
B. Marcy in his exploration of the Red River in 1852. Early
crossings were made at Rock Bluff, Doan's Crossing, and
Colbert's Ferry. As far as navigable, the river provided an
outlet to New Orleans from Northeast Texas, and it became a
highway for cotton, farm products, and eventually cattle
boats. Sternwheelers, sidewheelers, and showboats plied the
river alongside keelboats and pirogues. Before the railroad
era, steamboats regularly navigated the Red River from New
Orleans to the site of present Shreveport, but navigation of
the upper river was hampered by the "great raft," a mass of
driftwood and trees that obstructed the channel for
seventy-five miles. In 1834–35 Capt. Henry M. Shreve removed
the raft, but the river was not kept clear, and by 1856 the
logjam again obstructed the river for thirty miles above
Shreveport, backed up the waters of Big Cypress Creek to
form Caddo Lake, and so made Jefferson the principal
riverport of Texas until the removal of the raft again in
1874. |
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| With the westward movement of the
frontier and the establishment of the cattle trails to the
north, the Red River became an obstacle to cross on the way
to market. Cowboys relied on well-used crossings such as
Ringgold, Red River Station, and Doan's Crossing. Above Clay
County the Red River provides recreational use only in
periods of heavy run-off. The Wichita joins the Red River in
Clay County, and from this point downstream the river is
used for recreation year-round, though quicksand is common.
From Denison Dam at Lake Texoma to Arkansas the river flows
through remote, wild country. The Ouachita National Forest
and a portion of the Kisatchie National Forest of Louisiana
lie within the Red River basin. As a boundary, the Red River
remained in dispute as late as 1987. |
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| From:
Texas State Historical Association |
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