At its headwaters beginning near Leadville, Colorado, 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).

[12] This section supports extensive whitewater rafting, including The Numbers (near Granite, Colorado), Brown's Canyon, and the Royal Gorge.

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.

To maintain more reliable flow rates, 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.

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.

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.

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.

[17] In 1988, evidence of a native village was discovered along the Arkansas River 13 miles (21 km) south of present-day Tulsa, Oklahoma.

[17][a] French traders and trappers who had opened up trade with Indian tribes in Canada and the areas around the Great Lakes began exploring the Mississippi and some of its northern tributaries.

They turned to making and using dugout canoes, which they called pirogues, made by hollowing out the trunks of cottonwood trees.

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.

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.

Agricultural products such as corn, rice, dried peaches, beans, peanuts, snakeroot, sarsaparilla, and ginseng had grown in economic importance.

[18][d] Later, the Santa Fe Trail followed the Arkansas through much of Kansas, picking it up near Great Bend and continuing through to La Junta, Colorado.

[22] 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.

They began recovering the position it had previously abandoned, most notably Fort Gibson and reopened 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.

[23] 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).

[27][28] A fish kill occurred on December 29, 2010, in which an estimated 100,000 freshwater drum lined the Arkansas River bank.