The Canadian River is the longest tributary of the Arkansas River. Entirely within the United States, it is about long, starting in Colorado and traveling through New Mexico, the Texas Panhandle, and Oklahoma. The drainage area is about .
The Canadian is sometimes referred to as the South Canadian River to differentiate it from its tributary the North Canadian River.
Etymology
On John C. Fremont's route map of 1845, the river's name is listed as "Goo-al-pah or Canadian River" from the Comanche and Kiowa name for the river (Kiowa gúlvàu, red river). In 1929, Muriel H. Wright wrote that the Canadian River was named about 1820 by French traders who noted another group of traders from Canada (Canadiens) had camped on the river near its confluence with the Arkansas River.
According to the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, Spanish explorers in the 17th and 18th centuries called it the Rio Buenaventura and the Magdalena.
The name could be of Spanish origin from the word cañada (meaning "glen"), as the Canadian River formed a steep canyon in northern New Mexico and a somewhat broad canyon in Texas. A few historical records document that explanation. Edward Hale, writing in 1929, considered the French origin of the name most probable. In fact, the river was regularly used by Canadian fur traders (such as Louis Feuilli and Jean Chapuis, as well as the Mallet brothers) trying to establish contact with Santa Fe as early as 1752.
History
The first European to explore the Canadian River was Juan de Oñate, the Spanish governor of New Mexico, who followed the river from its origin to the western plains of what is now Oklahoma in 1601. Spanish traders and hunters were soon actively working in this area. Their journey was chronicled in the Journal of Lieutenant J.W. Abert from Bent's Fort to St. Louis, first published in 1846.
Randolph B. Marcy commanded a military expedition to lay out a trail along the Canadian River in 1849. The trail, which was thereafter called the California Road, followed the south side of the river and was soon followed by large numbers of emigrants to California via Santa Fe, especially after the 1849 discovery of gold in California. Travel along the road was sharply curtailed during the American Civil War, as Union and Confederate forces fought for control of Indian Territory.
In 1890, when Oklahoma Territory was proclaimed, the river formed part of the boundary between Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory. in remote southwestern Las Animas County, Colorado, roughly north of the New Mexico border.