[1] It was named for two senators, Robert S. Kerr (D-OK) and John L. McClellan (D-AR), who pushed its authorizing legislation through Congress.

Through Oklahoma and Arkansas, dams artificially deepen and widen the modest-sized river to build it into a commercially navigable body of water.

The design enables traffic to overcome an elevation difference of 420 feet (130 m) between the Mississippi River and the Tulsa Port of Catoosa.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) officially announced in early May 2015 that it had upgraded MKARNS from "Connector" to "Corridor" on the National Marine Highway.

To allow for navigation, construction was started in 1963 on a system of channels and locks to connect the many reservoirs along the length of the Arkansas River.

The article quoted Lt. Col. Gene Snyman, then deputy commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Tulsa District, as saying such a project would cost about $170 million (2010 dollars).

[5] Download coordinates as: The following tables list the features of the navigation system, from the Mississippi River to the origin at the Port of Catoosa.

Extremely heavy rains hit the Arkansas River upstream of Keystone Dam during late May and early June 2019.

Even so, water rushed downstream toward MKARNS at such a high rate that officials at USACE halted barge traffic to avoid calamities such as collisions or hitting trees and debris afloat in the river.