16. The names of pertinent tributaries entering the Arkansas River between Great Bend, Kans., and Pine Bluff, Ark., are shown in table No. 4, together with other data. TABLE NO. 4.-Tributaries pertinent to this report entering the Arkansas River between Great Bend, Kans., and Pine Bluff, Ark. 1 Bear Creek (drainage area of 1,630 square miles) is included in the Cimarron River Basin. 17. Economic development.-Considerable variation in economic conditions is encountered in the different parts of the Arkansas River Valley. The principal activities in the area include agriculture, stock raising, and dairying; oil production and refining; mining of coal; the lumber and furniture industry; and handling of farm prod ucts. 18. Table No. 5 lists the principal towns on the Arkansas River between Great Bend, Kans., and Pine Bluff, Ark., the reach under review in this report, and gives their populations for the last four censuses. This table shows that several of the localities are large and important, and that they have had considerable growth in recent years. 19. Agriculture is the principal industry. The raising and feeding of livestock are widely practiced, either as separate industries or in conjunction with general farming. Large areas of grazing and native hay lands in the West are devoted to livestock. Cotton, corn, rice, and hay are the most important of the many crops grown in the easters part of the valley. Large acreages adjacent to Fort Smith, both in Arkansas and Oklahoma, are devoted to the production of garden truck, much of which is canned before shipment. Other important crops include forage and soybeans. 20. Mineral resources abound throughout the area in and adjacent to the Ozark uplift and consist principally of petroleum, lead, zinc, coal, and bauxite. Since the Midcontinent oil fields lie largely within the Arkansas River Basin and extend northward and southward therefrom, the production of oil and the manufacture of its products, ( together with allied operations, has become a very important indusThe Biennial Census of Manufactures, 1937, shows the total value of all petroleum products produced for that year in Oklahoma and Kansas to be $246,965,344, of which $144,474,915 and $102490,429 were the respective values in the two States. In western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma large areas are underlaid with bituminous coal, and in Arkansas there are deposits of anthracite coal. Bauxite occurs in central Arkansas, south of Little Rock. 21. Industrial development is connected principally with the natu ral resources. Extensive deposits of coal are worked in eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas; brick, tile, and cement plants utilize the rock, shale, and clay deposits throughout the valley. The lumber and furniture industry is confined to the eastern part. In addition to the industries for conversion of natural resources into finished or semifinished products, there is a large investment in industries handling products of the farm, such as grain elevators, cotton and grain mills, cotton gins, cottonseed mills, creameries, and meat-packing plants. Bauxite has been commercially developed. 22. The transportation facilities of the area include railroads, highways, pipe lines, airways, and, to a minor degree, waterways. Collectively, these facilities form a complex pattern. The area, at present, is served by a network of main- and branch-line railroads. The following large systems have lines in the valley Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway; Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co.; Kansas City Southern Railway; Midland Valley Railroad; MissouriKansas-Texas Lines; Missouri Pacific Railroad Co.; Kansas, Oklahoma & Gulf Railway Co.; St. Louis-San Francisco Railway Co.; and St. Louis Southwestern Railway Lines. Hard-surfaced roads connect the principal urban centers and form through routes into and across the Arkansas Valley. A secondary system of gravel and wellgraded earth roads, and numerous unimproved roads, give general access to the whole region. Crude-oil pipe lines extend from the Oklahoma oil country to the North Central States and to the Texas Gulf coast. Gasoline pipe lines extend to Kansas City, Kans.; St. Louis, Mo.; and beyond into the North Central States. Two major commercial air lines cross the State of Arkansas, several cross the State of Oklahoma, and there are numerous commercial airports throughout the area. 23. Precipitation and temperature. There is a wide range in climatic conditions in the Arkansas River watershed. The western part is semiarid, while the eastern part is humid as it is in the path of general rainstorms which pass from the Gulf of Mexico to the St. Lawrence River. Although the rainfall increases somewhat uniformly from west to east, the run-off does not accumulate in like manner, the least flow being in the vicinity of Hutchinson, Kans. Rainstorms in the western portion are frequently of cloudburst intensity, but they are of shorter duration and less extensive than the general storms in the eastern portion. The average annual rainfall decreases from 25 inches in the Rocky Mountains to about 12 inches immediately east of the foothills; thence increases to 20 inches in the longitude of Dodge City, Kans.; 30 inches at Wichita, Kans.; 40 inches at Muskogee, Okla.; and about 52 inches near the mouth of the Arkansas River. The average monthly rainfall is greatest for the months of the crop season, except in the eastern portion of the watershed where the precipitation is more uniformly distributed throughout the year. Table No. 6 shows the average, maximum, and minimum annual precipitation at United States Weather Bureau precipitation stations which are representative of the area east of the ninety-eighth meridian, and the lengths of record of those stations. Table No. 7 shows the maximum and minimum temperatures with the year and month of Occurrence, average annual temperature, and period of temperature record at Tulsa, Okla., and Fort Smith and Little Rock, Ark. The winter temperatures are seldom sufficiently severe to cause ice flows in the river. 95782-44-3 TABLE NO. 6.-Precipitation data at representative U. S. Weather Bureau stations, Dec. 31, 1941 Enid, Okla Oklahoma City, Okla. Newkirk, Okla. Station 1 Standard 35-year mean. Length of August 1936. January 1930. Tulsa, Okla. Annual precipitation (inches) Average TABLE NO. 7.-Maximum, minimum, and average temperatures [Degrees Fahrenheit] 30.66 30.11 31.15 56. 61.3. 113 35. 22 33.97 38.81 33.55 37.71 43.33 38.85 46.68 43.71 41.78 43.79 48.38 51.83 Maximum Minimum U. S. Weather Bureau stations Fort Smith, Ark. 47.17 41.94 52.03 50.15 53.37 64.99 46.96 60.29 August 1936. 67.54 64.63 63.18 62.25 65.31 76.64 75.54 82.89 16.92 15.58 15.74 15.54 18.13 23.80 19.43 23.85 23.78 19.80 28.05 28.88 26.17 28.88 31.57 37.07 Little Rock, 62. 62.2. 110. August 1936. -12. February 1899. 24. Run-off-Different rainfall, soil, and topographic conditions in the several parts of the watershed result in variations in run-off and stream flow. Flood flows in the semiarid region are usually sharpcrested and soon lost in river channel storage and absorption. The tributary streams west of the ninety-eighth meridian have similar characteristics in that, throughout most of their length, extended lowflow periods occur with flood flow accounting for a large part of the annual run-off. These irregular flow characteristics are less pronounced in the eastern tributary streams. 25. The largest stream flows in the Rocky Mountain section usually result from melting snows in the spring of the year, but this is not a contributing factor in producing floods in the lower river. Flows from Colorado decrease through western Kansas, where there is practically no inflow. Floods in the main stem from Hutchinson, Kans., to the mouth of the Salt Fork River originate in the Kansas area east of the ninety-ninth meridian, and these flows are occasionally joined by those from the Salt Fork and Cimarron Rivers to produce major floods to the mouth of the Verdigris River. Since the general storm path over this portion of the basin upstream from Tulsa is not in the direction of stream flow, much of the run-off from the Cimarron River precedes the flows from upstream areas. 26. Table No. 8 gives pertinent data on drainage areas, stages, and discharges at pertinent gaging and discharge stations on the Arkansas River and tributaries. |