[9] The entire Smoky Hill drainage basin covers approximately 20,000 square miles (52,000 km2), including most of north-central and northwestern Kansas.

An early reference to the river as the Smoky Hill was by American explorer Zebulon Pike during his 1806 expedition to visit the Pawnee.

[15] Before American colonization, the land along the Smoky Hill River was favored hunting ground for the Plains Indians.

In 1867, the Comanche and the Kiowa, and in 1868, the Sioux and the Arapaho signed treaties withdrawing their opposition to the construction of a railroad along the Smoky Hill River.

[16] In 1948, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finished construction of a dam on the Smoky Hill for flood control in southeastern Ellsworth County creating Kanopolis Lake.

[17] In 1951, the United States Bureau of Reclamation completed another dam on the river, for irrigation and flood control, in southeastern Trego County, Kansas, which created Cedar Bluff Reservoir.