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The Ouachita River ( ) is a river that runs south and east through the United States states of Arkansas and Louisiana, joining the Tensas River to form the Black River near Jonesville, Louisiana. It is the 25th-longest river in the United States (by main stem).
Just below Lake Catherine, the river bends south near Malvern, and collects the Caddo River near Arkadelphia. Downstream, the Little Missouri River joins the Ouachita. After passing the city of Camden, shortly downstream from where dredging for navigational purposes begins, the river collects the waters of Smackover Creek and later the Ouachita's main tributary, the Saline River. South of the Saline, the Ouachita flows into Lake Jack Lee, a reservoir created by the Ouachita and Black River Project, just north of the Louisiana state line. The Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge encompasses the Ouachita from the Saline River to Lake Jack Lee's mouth.
Below Lake Jack Lee, the Ouachita continues south into Louisiana. The river flows generally south through the state, collecting the tributary waters of Bayou Bartholomew, Bayou de Loutre, Bayou d'Arbonne, the Boeuf River, and the Tensas River.
The Ouachita has five locks and along its length, located at Camden, Calion, and Felsenthal, Arkansas, and in Columbia and Jonesville, Louisiana.
Before the rise of the historic tribes, their indigenous ancestors had lived along the river for thousands of years. In the Lower Mississippi Valley, they began building monumental earthwork mounds in the Middle Archaic period (6000–2000 BC in Louisiana). The earliest construction was Watson Brake, an 11-mound complex built about 3500 BC by hunter gatherers in present-day Louisiana. The discovery and dating of several such early sites in northern Louisiana has changed the traditional model, which associated mound building with sedentary, agricultural societies, but these cultures did not develop for thousands of years.
The largest such prehistoric mound was destroyed in the 20th century during construction of a bridge at Jonesville, Louisiana. Likely built by the Mississippian culture, which rose about 1000 AD on the Mississippi and its tributaries, this mound was reported in use as late as 1540 by the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto. On his expedition through this area, he encountered Indians occupying the site. A lightning strike destroyed the temple on the mound that year, which was seen as a bad omen by the tribe. They never rebuilt the temple, and were recorded as abandoning the site in 1736.
After the Louisiana purchase, Arkansas became a part of the U.S. and the Dunbar and Hunter Expedition was commissioned to explore Arkansas which included the length of the Ouachita River from the mouth to Hot Springs.
The Ouachita River was a route used in the Trail of Tears. Native Americans were transported along the river to Camden, Arkansas and from there they walked the rest of the way to Oklahoma.
The river was an important factor in settling the region because it provided access to larger markets for cotton and other goods. Nowadays the river still transports goods however to a lesser extent than before and many of its natural areas are preserved.
During the 1830s, the Ouachita River Valley attracted land speculators from New York and southeastern cities. Its rich soil and accessibility due to the country's elaborate river steamboat network made it desirable.
One of the investors from the east was Meriwether Lewis Randolph, the youngest grandson of Thomas Jefferson. He was building a home on the Ouachita River in what is now Clark County, Arkansas, when he died of malaria in 1837. He had been appointed Secretary of the Arkansas Territory by President Andrew Jackson in 1835, and had relinquished his commission when Arkansas became a state in 1836.
In April 1815, Captain Henry Miller Shreve was the first person to bring a steamboat, the Enterprise, up the Red River.
During the 1830s, farmers cultivated land for large cotton plantations; dependent on slave labor, cotton production supported new planter wealth in the ante-bellum years. ran scheduled trips between Camden, Arkansas and New Orleans. A person could travel from any eastern city to the Ouachita River without touching land, except to transfer from one steamboat to another.
Trade using steamboats on the Ouachita River became an important part of the local economy and supported many of the communities along the river.
In the late 1830s, the steamboats in rivers on the west side of the Mississippi River were a long, wide, shallow draft vessel, lightly built with an engine on the deck. These newer steamboats could sail in just 20 inches of water. Contemporaries claimed that they could "run with a lot of heavy dew"
Encyclopedia | United States History | Steamboats
In 1881 a snagboat was employed on the river and a boat for dredging in the shoals to the amount of $141,879.24.Benyaurd, W. H. H. (1882). Annual report upon the preservation of the ports of Memphis, Vicksburg, and Natchez : improvement of the navigation of Red River, Louisiana and of certain rivers in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee; and water-gauges on the Mississippi and its principal tributaries, in charge of W. H. H. Benyaurd, being appendix P of the annual report of the Chief of Engineers for 1882.. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office., p. x. Earlier plans had called for the construction of locks and dams.
El Dorado News-Times | March 7, 2018 | Flooding continues in Felsenthal.
The river is commercially navigable from Camden, Arkansas, to its terminal point in Jonesville in Catahoula Parish in eastern Louisiana. Upstream of Camden, the river receives substantial recreational use.
The Ouachita is lined for most of its length with deep woods, including substantial . It has a scenic quality representative of the southwestern Arkansas and northern Louisiana region.
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