Arkansas-Verdigris River Canal
(Reworked episode broadcast on January 15, 2003)
January 17, 2001
 Listen  Historian's Notes Resources Transcript
Historian's Notes
Having been a landlocked state for millions of years one can only imagine the excitement of finally
watching a barge, which began its journey in the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, enter the state. The idea
of connecting the state to the ocean was the dream of Senator Robert S. Kerr. Because of his hard work
and imagination -- not to mention his ability to grind favors from other politicians -- Oklahoma was able
to realize a completely new market for goods both entering and leaving the state. The Kerr-McClellan waterway is a priceless asset for Oklahoma and is celebrated as such on this segment of the Almanac.
Resources
Material for this segment came from a variety of standard Oklahoma history
texts
Almanac Transcript
Hello, I'm Steven Kite welcoming you to the Oklahoma Audio Almanac where
we turn the pages of history to bring you the stories of our state's past.
Oklahoma’s two main river systems, the Red River and the Arkansas River have always proven excellent
means of transportation for early day as well as modern residents. From the earliest recorded history
of the region, until the arrival of the more convenient and reliable railroad, the Arkansas River, the
more navigable of the two systems, was heavily utilized as a trade route. Because of the railroad though,
river travel, beginning in the 1870’s, entered a seventy-year period of stagnation.
In 1943 Robert S. Kerr was elected Governor of Oklahoma and put into action an ambitious plan that
would forever change travel and commerce in the state. Kerr proposed a canal system connecting the Arkansas
River and its main tributary the Verdigris to the Mississippi River. This canal plan of Kerr’s would have
two main benefits for the residents of north-eastern Oklahoma: first, it would connect the north-eastern
section of the state to the Gulf of Mexico theoretically providing unlimited industrial opportunities,
and second, a system of locks, dams and canals would help to tame the wild waters of the Verdigris whose
annual floods wreaked havoc on nearby towns.
The canal project officially began in 1943. With Kerr's election to the US Senate in 1945 and with
the help of Arkansas Senator John McClellan the project began to progress rapidly. Kerr wrangled, manhandled
and bullied funds from Congress for his project whose costs soon soared into the billions. The Kerr-McClellan
navigation system, as it’s called, is one of the most expensive civil projects in US history behind the
Panama Canal and the US space program. When finished a fully navigable route lay from the Gulf of Mexico
to the mouth of the Verdigris river in north-eastern Oklahoma.
The Oklahoma portion consists of no less than 448 miles of constructed river channel, five locks, and
three lakes: Eufaula, Keystone and Oologah. It was a long and arduous process taking over 28 years to
complete, but it was in this week of January 1971 when the first commercial barge made its way from the
Gulf of Mexico, up the Mississippi and into the Port of Catoosa thereby marking the official opening of
the Kerr-McClellan Navigation System: Oklahoma’s water way to the sea.
I'm Steven Kite.
The Oklahoma Audio Almanac is a production of the OSU Library and Oklahoma's
Public Radio.
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